Going the Distance to Ghana
Cleveland schoolchildren leave their parents behind
for a trip that takes them to new heights and broadens their horizons.
By PATRICE M. JONES
PLAIN DEALER REPORTER
A group of parents waved wildly from the observation deck at Cleveland Hopkins
International Airport early yesterday as they watched their sons and daughters
lift off in a plane that disappeared in the misty morning sky.
It was the end of a send-off that left few parents with dry eyes. Their
10- and 11-year-olds might have looked as if they were headed to spring camp,
with new clothes, extra socks and stuffed Easter bunnies in tow, but these inner-city
students were set to travel across thousands of miles of ocean and 500 years of
excruciating history to Ghana, a place they have read about, written about and
studied for the past year.
By the time the 7:10 a.m. flight left Hopkins, Delessa McCullar had kissed her
daughter, Ebony, one last time and let the tears roll all the way to the observation
deck. As the plane lifted off, McCullar's smiling face revealed a mixture of pride
and trepidation.
"These are tears of happiness," she said. "It's just that it is a long way. I
am excited and happy for her, though. She is only 10 and she may never get to
experience something like this again."
For most of the 21 Cleveland youngsters who left on the trip, it was their first
time away from mom and dad, brothers and sisters and their first time on an airplane.
Almost all the students also were the first in their families to travel to Africa.
East End Neighborhood House, under the leadership of executive director
Paul Hill Jr., organized the trip, which promises to be a life-altering journey
for the pupils.
The trip will cap a school year of activities coordinated through East End Neighborhood
House's Passages project. In a partnership with 17 Cleveland schools, East End
Neighborhood House launched the program four years ago to help elementary and
middle-school age students, particularly black males, bridge the troublesome period
between adolescence and adulthood.
The program, which has broadened to include female students focuses
on themes such as respect, responsibility, faith unity through a series of character-building
activities.
Ten-year-old Quida Patterson pondered the importance of the trip to Ghana as she
sat in her fifth-grade classroom at Harvey Rice Elementary earlier I week.
She said she forgot to ask I teacher whether or not they have McDonald's
restaurants in Ghana, but she said either way, she wasn't going to miss fast food
much on this trip. What she was looking forward to was a journey to a place filled
with "pure, rich gold, ruins of castles and wildlife. "
"I am excited because this is probably a once-in-a-lifetime thing," Quida said.
After arriving in Accra, Ghana's capital, today, the students will
begin a 10-day tour that will include visits to museums, palaces, a beach, a forest,
a school and the house, now a museum, where noted black writer and scholar W.E.B.
DuBois last lived. They will write down their daily adventures in a journal.
Though they will stay in hotels, the students will spend much of their time being
hosted by local people, who will show them former English and Portuguese castles
where men and women were kidnapped and often died before being taken as slaves
to the Americas. They also will visit a school two hours west of Accra, in
Elmina, called the Edinaman School. Through candy sales, car washes and other
fund raising, the students generated $2,000 to buy supplies and equipment such
as a fax machine, for the school.
The students, who were chosen for the program through teacher and counselor recommendations,
already spent last summer in a six-week leadership academy, where they brushed
up on math and other academic skills.
Most of the students also spent a weekend at Camp Mueller deep in the Cuyahoga
Valley National Recreation Area, where they talked about such subjects as the
Underground Railroad and participated in a series of physical activities meant
to build confidence and teamwork:
With a special grant, snagged by Rep. Louis Stokes and earmarked for
community activities, East End Neighborhood House will absorb most of the $2,200
it costs to send each child and each of the nine adults to Ghana.
"We want to make the students aware that they are citizens of the world, not just
Cleveland, Ohio," Hill said of the trip. "Most importantly, we want to instill
in them a sense of honor. I don't believe the community has done a good job of
trying to reinforce the values that parents teach at home. We are trying to get
them to understand the responsibility they have to their communities, even at
this young age."
In schools throughout the country over the past several years, more
youth programs have focused on bolstering black students' knowledge of their culture
and history. Experts say escalating school dropout rates, along with high rates
of unemployment and incarceration, particularly among black males, have led many
educators to look to Africa for answers.
Black Americans have been making journeys to rediscover their cultural roots for
generations, but the difference in the '90s youth initiatives is that they combine
a focus on cultural awareness with old-fashioned character building, something
local organizers say students often miss in school.
"In schools, we have focused on what they can accomplish," said Greg
Williams, youth coordinator for the Passages project. "What we haven't focused
on is what kind of adults they will become," Williams said some of the main goals
of the trip is to help the children understand that they have a rich cultural
heritage and that they must respect themselves and help one another.
A groundbreaking effort focusing on similar themes began in the Baltimore schools
last fall when a group of middle school boys left the city schools to begin several
years of study in rural Kenya. The boys are attending the Baraka School through
a project funded by the Abell Foundation and the Baltimore public schools.
Robert C. Embry Jr., president of the Abell Foundation, said the Baltimore
project has taken the boys, considered at risk of dropping out, away from the
guns and drugs that plague their low income communities for at least two years.
Hill said such a radical approach has never been considered here, but he said
he plans to take a group of students to Africa again.
Parents like Jackqueline Flewellen are grateful. Flewellen went on
the trip yesterday, along with her daughter NaTasha, 10,
"It is quite an experience for them at the age of 10 or 11," Flewellen said. "Few
children at this age get to do more than go on-a trip to Washington. But for us
to be poor, struggling parents, but have opportunities like this for children
is truly wonderful."