As part of efforts to advance the study of French in Ghana, Les PasserellesGlobale-BRIDGES (LPG), a Canadian based non-governmental organisation, has started a French learning programme in three communities.
The pilot project is being hosted at Ashaiman and Dawhenya in the Greater Accra Region and Afife in the Volta Region, where students and interested community members are taught the language.
The organisation, founded in Quebec by Ms Marion Lowe-McLean, a Jamaican Canadian with roots in Ghana, is managed by a group of professionals, including educators, health and community workers.
A statement issued by the organisation yesterday said it was operating under the motto, “Education is the root and route to liberty”, and seeks to make French easily accessible to citizens within English speaking communities in West Africa.
“It aims to do the same with English in Francophonie countries in the region, as a way of promoting cultural integration, social growth, equality, and peace, which the founder believes are the needed values of modern society,” it said.
To achieve its goal of social equality, the statement said LPG aims to provide resources and support volunteers running language programmes and work with community and government leaders to develop the communities in which LPG operates.
On February 1, 2022, some members of the LPG, accompanied by the leaders of Dawhenya New Odorkor Estate, visited Prampram General Hospital in the Greater Accra Region, to donate gifts to patients on some wards, the statement said.
It said the LPG team also visited their centre, Afife Basic School, in the Volta Region, to meet the volunteers, and parents of the children who had signed up for the LPG French acquisition programme.
According to the statement, the LPG pilot project, run by Mr Abrahams Mawuvi, the Community Services Director and a group of volunteers, had made great strides and reflects the LPG dream and what could be achieved.
“It’s the hope of LPG to replicate this success all over West Africa and beyond,” the statement said.
It said Ms Lowe-McLean, founder of LPG, has served the community of Montreal, Quebec, for almost 50 years with a passion for education and human development.
It said she holds the view that Ghana, being surrounded by Francophone nations, should be competent in the two commercial languages – English and French by using the model learned while living in the Province of Quebec.
BY TIMES REPORTER
