Priscilla Asante (14)
“I am a girl of fourteen years of age and enrolled in JHS 2. My home town is Accra and in former days I was attending “Osei Kuffour International School”. This school can be found at Tamale in the northern region. During that time I was staying with my aunt at Tamale, who was a good aunt to me. She always gave me all that I needed. But in these days I was hanging out with bad people. Finally, I went astray in life. We had a lot of fights and my aunt sent me back to my parents at Accra. This was also due to the way she normally shouted and insulted me in the presence of other people. This behavior I disliked a lot. When I returned to Accra my parents told me that they will send me to my grandmother at Agona Swedru.
I got along very well with my grandmother and she advised me to attend Saint Germain School Complex. When I started my education at Saint Germain School, I was a day student. After some time, my grandmother got ill and was admitted to the hospital for some treatment. Soon after, I was very sad because she died. After her funeral, I was asked to stay with my grandmother’s friend in the same town. However, we did not get along well so I decided to get a boyfriend who could support me to further up my education. But soon I realized that I did not want to depend completely on my boyfriend being prone to his temper. So my parents decided to bring me to the boarding house of Saint Germain. In fact, when I came to the boarding house the teachers and my fellow students helped me to learn very hard and to pass my BECE. Thanks to them I got a scholarship for Senior High School and can continue chasing my dreams. There is one person who has made me think a lot about life. This is Sir. Gilbert Kofi Germain. Thanks to his counseling I stayed away from sexual relationships with boys. This way I can focus on my personal development and won’t get pregnant what would stop me from learning.
When I came to this school I was a very disrespectful girl and I liked to needle our teachers. But soon I realized that they wanted to help me to further up my education. Maybe the most important lesson I learnt at Saint Germain School is how to love and care for others. I feel very comfortable here and I am glad to be a part of this school.”
Christopher Ayensu (14)
“I was born in Akropong in the central region of Ghana. I am very happy to be a student of Saint Germain School. This is because it is a very great school with intelligent teachers and pupils. We always throw challenges to ourselves whenever classwork or exams are given to us. It was my elder sister who made me become a student of Saint Germain. When my sister was attending school at Saint. Germain, I still was very young being only two years old. At that time my sister always took the position of being the first person in her class. She also knew how to control herself, to dress decently, to talk politely and also how to speak fantastic and understandable English. She also avoided laziness in everything what she did in life.
All this made my father know the good achievement my sister got from being student of the Saint Germain School. So he decided to send me also to the school as a boarder at the age of two years. From this time on I attended the school till now. Some rules and regulations in the school are strict but they help us to become more disciplined to guide our behavior. For example, we should wake up early in the dawn at 4.30am to bath. We are also told not to go out without asking for permission from a teacher or any person having an authority in the school. I am so happy that I am trained here without ever feeling any bad reaction against me. I love my school and will never forget it.”
Lydia Ndiako (16)
I was raised in Elubo in the western region of Ghana as the fifth born of my parents. I was very young (three years of age) when my parents brought me to this school. I have stayed in the boarding house till date. By the help of my school I can now speak and write good English. Madam Dorothy Eghan being the proprietress of my School has been a loving and kind mother to me. She knows how to care for children and at the same time has patience on us.
It came to a time my family could no longer take care of me and my siblings but Mr. Germain advised me never to give up in life. I like a lot talking to him about troubles and daily struggles going on in our lives. Mr. Germain and Madam Dorothy Eghan also use to help me with paying my school in fees. I was a quick tempered person but at Saint Germain School I learned how to control my heart. My dream is to be a doctor and a counselor in the future. I want to educate adolescents and women who know nothing about proper parenting especially in the rural communities like where I come from. My aim is to become a good leader one day to achieve my dreams. There is nothing in this world that is so precious for me as the school I am attending. In fact, St. Germain is my family and until death takes me away I will never forget it.
Ndiako Bright (18)
“My name is Ndiako Bright and I come from Elubo in the western region of Ghana. I am the third child of my parents and very passionate about my church (Pentecost) activities. I attended school at Saint Germain School Complex popularly known as SAGESCO. I was very young, at the age of four when I was enrolled to the school as a student and I was a boarder.
When I was a child, I did not know what to become of “me” in future thus purpose, aim and my aspiration. I was not able to discover myself. My selfestimate was nothing to write home about. “SAGESCO” being my alma mater has helped me to discover myself and I have realized my purpose in life today for which I know my tomorrow is secure .The school has also brought me so many training and victories. The school trained and supported me in paying off my school fees and it helped to feed me from the time I started the school until the time I completed in the year 2015.
Mr. Gilbert Kofi Germain being the founder of the Young and Lonely Foundation (YLF) also gave me some training. He used to give me advices whenever he comes to the school. These advices were helping me a lot when I took and used those pieces of words in my life. These two inspriring advices still remain basic principles of my life: “if you can dream it, you can do it” and “a creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others”.
There is nothing that is going to stop me from coming back to SAGESCO wherever I go. The school gave me all the necessary training that I needed to become a moral and successfull person in life and I am not going to forget saint Germain school complex (SAGESCO). I love my school. Indeed SAGESCO is my alma mater.”
Anita Mensah (15)
“I am a girl of fifteen years of age. My home is located in Cape Coast, but I stay at Kasoa. I attend JHS school at Saint Germain as a boarder. The school helps me to improve my education and to pursue my dream of becoming a lawyer. That is why I study very hard so that I can get a scholarship to continue my senior secondary School in Australia. I have to admit, that before coming to this school I was once a very stubborn girl – in these days I liked insulting, stealing and not doing class works. Indeed, I was very stubborn.
As a result, I wanted to have a boyfriend at a very early stage. Even when I came to this school I was still thinking to have a boyfriend. Because of bad peer pressure, I even got one, but having been deep in a pit not knowing about the consequences. By fortune, I got to know a warrior named Gilbert Germain. First, I did not want to listen to his words. But with his gentle patience and benevolent determination, he continued to advise me till later I came back to my senses. Without the guidance I found at Saint Germain, I could have been pregnant at the age of thirteen years.
Another reason why I came to the Saint Germain is because of the financial support: The fees raised by my former school were very high. Even though I was a day student and not a boarder, I could not afford to pay these fees. I have no daddy who can support me in my schooling. So my mummy was the one suffering to pay our school fees and to give us money to buy food. It was a pain for me to see how my mother needed to struggle to pay my schooling fees. One day, my aunt told my mum to move me as a boarder to Saint Germain School. This school helped me a lot by reducing my schooling fees and by allowing me to pay them back gradually. So now I can fully focus on my education, without pushing my mum to struggle for money.”
Okine Roland (18)
“I hail from the central region of Ghana. Here I started school at St. Patrick Anglican located at Jei- krodua and completed my JHS level in the year 2015. In the same year my father died which became a tragedy for my mother, her five children and myself. My mother is a farmer and did not earn enough money for all of us all to go to school and feed. So I had to find a job to get money to continue my schooling. But I couldn’t make it well to support myself, not to mention the money I needed to feather my education. However, I had the strong will to go to school since my aim is to be a policeman. I want to become a policeman so that I can get money to help my mother to look after my young siblings.
One day, I met a friend who told me about Saint Germain Senior High School at Agona Swedru. So, I went to meet the proprietress Madam Dorothy and told her my entire problems. I was so happy when she accepted me as a student. Since I started at Saint Germain Senior High School, I have seen a lot of progress in my education and my life in general. I know now that I have the strength to achieve a bright future. But sometimes I feel sad because there are a lot of students around that need support to get a good education. I wish Saint Germain School could support all of them so that everybody gets the chance to forge his own destiny.”
Diana Akins Germain (11)
“I come from Agona Swedru in the Central Region but I stay with my grandmother and my father. I have a younger brother called Lawrence. The name of my grandmother is Madam Dorothy Eghan. The name of my father is Mr. Gilbert Kofi Germain. He is the one who encourage me never to give up in life. The one who makes me happy whenever I am sad. He is the one who advices me to keep learning hard which has always made me maintain my first position in class. He is the one that is why I am who I am today. My grandmother also teaches us what is right and wrong. She is my future role model. I wish I could be like her in future or even more. Because of them I am now enjoying my education in school and I can speak good English. If fact, I am proud of my grandmother and my dad being there for me at all times. Now I can say without any fear that I have a bright future. I thank Mr. Gilbert Kofi Germain and Madam Dorothy Eghan for their support. My dream is also to become a proprietress in future one day.”
Nkrumah Richlove (14)
“I am a student of Saint Germain School since my early childhood. I was brought to the school at the age of two. Now I am in JHS 3.I. When I was a small girl, the proprietress was a very caring mother for me. But I really changed when I grew older. I became very stubborn to the extent that I was always beaten. During this time, I started doing all sort of bad things like stealing, bullying and disrespecting. So I became a very notorious girl and did not show any respect to my fellow students and to the teachers. As a result, all my academic work went down. I started failing in my exams, and dismissed any type of class work. Instead, I started chasing boys. Soon, I got one and this boosted my ego. But soon I said it was not enough for me, and I started look out for more.
Luckily I came to meet a warrior who is called Sir Gilbert Kofi Germain but I usually call him Daddy Gilbert. He always told me to aim my arrow well because I came to this school for a purpose and I should fulfill that purpose. But it came to a time when I really became angry of him. I could not stand his words anymore. When I saw him or the proprietress I felt like leaving the school. But this did not worry neither Sir Gilbert nor the proprietress. They always stood at my side, welcomed me with open arms and let me feel like a daughter.
They supported me in getting to know myself. Step by step my character changed: Now I feel confident to socialize with other people. I have really seen a great change in my life. I have come to realize that what I was doing was wrong. My nickname notorious has now changed for good. I now perform well in class and am happy because I see more clearly what person I want to be in the future. Thank you daddy Gilbert for the great change and improvement you have brought into my life.”
Find out more about the life of our students in the following videos!
