If you think back to when you were a pupil, which teacher caught your eye?

Was it the one that stood at the front reading from a book or sheet of
paper in a monosyllabic tone? Or perhaps it was the one who was animated and engaged – who showed they were truly passionate about their
subject? Chances are it was the latter, but being this kind of teacher can feel challenging after years of working.

Why is motivation important?

A motivated teacher is crucial to a successful classroom. They will look at teaching through a different lens, and, in doing so, motivate their
students in their learning too. Motivation helps to energise, direct and sustain positive behaviour over a long period of time. It involves working
towards goals and tailoring activities to achieving this purpose. It also helps to drive creativity and curiosity, sparking the desire needed for
students to want to learn more.

It isn’t just a case of getting pupils interested in learning in the moment, but also in growing the underlying goals and aspirations pushing their
entire academic studies. It is about motivating them beyond the initial task or feeling of accomplishment and appreciating how ‘deferred
gratification’ plays into the role of education in order for them to work towards a greater, larger goal. This is known as ‘intrinsic motivation’ and
research has found it to be of key importance.

How is motivation fostered through teaching in the UK?

The classroom environment plays a key role in how motivated a student is. They need to be in a positive environment in which they feel valued
and respected. It is also important that they feel as though their input is heard. If they are learning in a caring, supportive and inclusive space, they
will feel much more motivated to learn.

However, as well as the overall environment making a difference, having a motivated teacher is also crucial. The way that you present the
information to them will help to dictate how they feel towards it. If you share it as something worth being excited and animated over, this will
shape their behaviour and response. They will feel more inspired to do well as they will want to do justice to a subject that you have taught so
passionately – even if it’s not their main interest in life.

A motivated student will feel genuine pride in the work they have done, which is an important feeling to carry through in life. It helps keep
students actively interested in what they’re studying and pushes them towards continuing their education. It enhances their performance in all
aspects of their school work and helps them become goal-oriented, motivated individuals in life. It also encourages them to always finish a task
and do the best that they can with all they set their mind to.

How to introduce motivation into the classroom

Part of being a motivated teacher comes through your general behaviour and attitude. There’s a lot to be said for people that regularly smile, offer
a happy and cheery outlook on life and generally come across as upbeat and pleasant to be around – regardless of how they’re actually feeling.
Making your classroom a warm, colourful and stimulating environment is also key to creating a positive space.

It’s also important that you reward your students for good work as you go along. It doesn’t have to be all the time, as then it will come to be
expected and will hold less value when you do praise them. But recognising hard work and offering praise will ensure your students stay
encouraged and feeling as though their work is on the right track forwards and that you’re noticing their efforts.

Mixing things up is also key. If you’re doing the same thing all the time, it’ll start to become boring and repetitive. Look at the materials you’re
teaching and think about how you can put a new spin on them. Perhaps you turn something into an acting activity or maybe you can turn facts or
figures into a song that will help to make it more memorable. Perhaps you can get students working together on a group activity – this is a great
way of helping students motivate each other. Be creative – use posters, offer visual aids and diagrams, show movies and play games.

Additionally, working in a different environment will help to keep students on their toes. Research has found that when we move around in
various spaces while learning, we are able to recall more information better than if we had just stayed in one space. This is due to the associations
the brain makes. The more you encourage movement in learning, the more the information is absorbed. Perhaps you do some work in the
playground, some in the classroom and some off the school grounds. Maybe you look at taking your students on a field trip that will add a real-
life dimension to their studies.

Setting expectations in the classroom is key and gives your students a standard to work towards. However, when you find your students need a
nudge forwards, offering small incentives can help make learning fun. Encouraging a competitive energy can help fuel students and push them
further – this could range from offering a special privilege to having a class pizza party if they all achieve a certain grade. There’s a reason sales
companies offer staff bonuses – it always motivates!

Finally, showing students how information they’re learning is useful to real-life scenarios will help them to see the practical application that it
holds. Often students will switch off when they don’t see how it will ever benefit them, but if you can connect it to life outside the classroom, it
will give it new importance and motivate them to listen more attentively.presented below.

The project objectives in overview

To build a CHPS-center in Atsiekpoe following the building standards set by the government in 2016.

To develop and enroll health educational program based on the health topics expressed by the community with a private partner as soon as
possible.
To collaborate with the Ghanaian rural housing department and equip a team of laborers from Atsiekpoe with knowledge and skills on how to
build with land rite ‘interlocking bricks’.

To establish and manage the clinic in such a manner that it meet the standards set by environmental protection agency to become a ‘climate-
smart’ facility.

To deliver primary health care services through the GHS and other service providers to the inhabitants of nine communities.

Clinic-specific goals

The primary objective of the Green Clinic is to improve the health status of the local population of Atsiekpoe and surrounding villages through
easy access to adequate primary health care services:

Maternal and child health care including family planning.

Immunization against major infectious diseases.

Prevention and control of local endemic diseases.

Appropriate treatment of common diseases and injuries.

Provision of essential drugs.

The second objective is to provide health education for the region:

Education concerning prevailing health problems and the method of preventing and controlling them.

Promotion of food supply and proper nutrition.

The third objective is to diminish sanitation problems by sustainable solutions:

Adequate supply of safe water and basic sanitation.

Promotion of environmental friendly solutions to health and sanitation problems.

Beneficiaries
The direct beneficiaries of this project are the estimated 3200 people of Vome Electoral Area who are living in the catchment area of the clinic.
The people of the village of Atsiekpoe benefit even more as they have put the effort in bringing this project to their community.

Apart from the health services delivered by the CHPS-centre (Community-Based Health Planning and Services), they partner with Stepping
Stones for Africa and Jolinaiko Eco Tours to attract other partners in health to tackle other health concerns that are outside the mandate of the
GHS.

Furthermore, they benefit in many other ways. The construction itself offers economic activities where skilled and unskilled laborers are needed.
The interlocking brick system will bring a new construction method to the community, and this will create new economic activity for the future as
it’s a perfect alternative for the conventional way of building. Other benefits are training and employment of community members as health
personnel but also in the field of security and maintenance of the facility. The clinic is most likely going to be a start-off of many other projects in
the future adding additional benefit to the people of Atsiekpoe and the electoral area at large.

Construction

There are different options for constructing this facility. A private constructor and a building engineer affiliated with the district will be involved
to attract the required expertise to meet building standards. However, it’s an opportunity for construction workers in the community to upgrade
their skills. Our strong intention is to use the innovative building method; ‘the interlocking bricks system’.

The goal is to create a small facility in Atsiekpoe where this innovative kind of environmental friendly bricks will be created. Special brick
moulds and training for the local workers will come available through this separate project. This brick-creating facility will in the first place
provide the Green Clinic with bricks for its walls. However, when the hospital is ready, the villagers can continue using this facility as an
economic activity, at the same time contributing to sustainable building in this remote region.

The environmental friendly nature of this building method is in line with our objective to establish a ‘climate-smart’ facility. The advantages of
this building method in bullet points:

It requires less cement (for block making, laying and plastering) and other building materials (like irons rods and beams).

These bricks regulate temperature, keeping the inside cool and thus reducing the need of energy to run a fan or AC.

Buildings constructed of these bricks are earthquake proof.

Implementing these bricks brings development of new skills to the community and possible job opportunities in the future.
This method is emerging in Ghana and offered by private construction companies as well as by the Department of Rural Housing. The desired
strategy is collaborating with the Department of Rural Housing. They encourage this method for community development projects. Furthermore,
partnering with the government also ensures that the project is well embedded and responsibilities are shared between the community and its
partners, and the local governmental institutions.

Sanitation

The Atsiekpoe Action Group for Development visited a couple of companies in Accra to select a partner for the establishment of a toilet-facility
at the compound of the Green Clinic.

Right now, we are investigating if biogas providing toilet facilities are an option. We spoke with a new company that invented lasting affordable
solutions to building a hygienic toilet facility with any number of seating capacity. This toilet facility is constructed by digging a 3 foot
rectangular hole and a digester built in it before the structure and toilet seater is fixed on it. A hand washing facility is fixed and connected to the
toilet seater of which the water that is used to wash hands is used to flash the faecal matter. Only small quantities of water are needed to do the
flushing. It is an odorless toilet facility. The digester usually processes the faecal matter and it becomes manure for crop production. The toilet
seater facility is divided into three categories and prices; the modern system based on a ceramic pot is appropriate for the Clinic.

The advantages of biogas providing toilet facilities compared to a normal sanitation facility:

Maintenance and dislodging is simple and affordable.

Cost depends on the type of building, and it’s possible to make it as affordable as possible.

The system is hygienic and odorless.

The system has been developed for deprived rural areas and only a little water is needed.

On the downside, using biogas providing toilet facilities from human faecal material could be controversial. The relationship with a clinic and
possible diseases people carry could make it even more disputable.

Concluding: this item to be sorted out further.

A climate-smart Clinic
The African Environmental Experts Network (AEEN) will play an advisory role on how to meet the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
standards and become a true ‘climate-smart’ facility. We are in contact with Hobson Agyapong, who is an environmental expert working for the
EPA and who initiated the AEEN.

Tree-planting forms a significant aspect of the entire concept, where trees will be used to shade the building, to provide revitalizing resting places
and compensate the CO2 emulsion. AEEN has already promised to take responsibility of tree planting and training and monitoring of the
community members who will be in charge of maintaining the garden in the long-term.

Besides the eco-friendly building method and the tree-planting, the clinic will use renewable energy sources for its operations, like solar power
and compost- or biogas toilets.

Service delivery

The main body responsible for management and service delivery once the building is established is the GHS. They have developed the CHPS-
compound management strategy to run the facility. This strategy also emphasizes ownership of the concept by the community, and community
members are part of the Community Health Management Committee (CHMC). The important ‘boots on the ground’ are Community Health
Workers (CHW) who are long-serving trainable volunteers recruited at community level and they will assist a professional Community Health
Nurse of Midwife (CHO).

The added value of this facility is that provision has been made in the clinic for an extra consultation room for other (private) partners in health to
integrate and enroll their health educational and disease prevention programs. For example, these organizations are Marie Stoop Foundation,
International Health Care Centre and West Africa AIDS Foundations (WAAF+). The University of Legon and the department of physiotherapy
also showed interest following the frequent mentioning of joint and muscle pains in the community health survey.

However the actual service delivery is the follow-up once this project has been completed. We have the assurance that the GHS takes
responsibility of the service delivery and SSFA and partners will make sure that value is added but fueling partnerships between other health care
providers, CHMC and the GHS.

The organization

A project management team is going to be installed to supervise, monitor and evaluate the project. Representatives of all the stakeholders will be
part of this team, or will be involved as advisors and assisted during specific phases in the project.

The management team consist of the following representatives:

Stepping Stones for Africa – 2 representatives

Jolinaiko Eco Tours – 1 representative form

Atsiekpoe Community – 3 representatives

Advisors from:

District Engineers from the district Assembly

Representative of the Health Directorate – GHS

African Environmental Experts Network (AEEN)

SAMALEX Systems

Naa Ashilye

The workplan

The scheme below shows the steps to be undertaken and the funds needed to finance these steps. (Click to enlarge)

Please visit our fundraising pages!

The foundation of the building has been laid out, so now we need the funds to build walls and a roof! We currently have 2 fundraising pages:

Visit our fundraising page on Fundrazr.com to help us finish the building of the clinic

More info

A ‘Green’ Clinic for Atsiekpoe and Vome, Ghana

The Green Clinic – a new way of cooperation

The Green Clinic – regional need for improved Health Care

The Green Clinic – A Community Health Promotions Centre

Our mission: Providing stepping stones to empower communities

Our Strategy for 2016-2019: Responsible tourism as principle

« All our projects

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Scouting weekend in Atsiekpoe and fundraising for the clinic

Casting the concrete for the foundation of The Green Clinic

A birth on a riverbank at night

Presentation of crowdfunding pages in Atsiekpoe

Community meeting Atsiekpoe

Annual Festival results!

Sustainable sanitation

A climate-smart clinic
Design of the Green Clinic

Innovative bricks and their economic spin-off

Beneficiaries of the Green Clinic Project

Process Report 9 – Foundation Work of Atsiekpoe CHPS Compound in Progress

Process Report 8 – Status Update of the Atsiekpoe CHPS Compound

Atsiekpoe Du Nenyo Graphic village newspaper

Process Report 7 – Focused Group Discussion on Building Procedure in Atsiekpoe

Process Report 6 – Planning the Community Health Project in Atsiekpoe

Process Report 5 – WASH Visit to Accra by Atsiekpoe Action Group for Development

Process Report 4 – Planning the Community Health Project in Atsiekpoe

Process Report 3 – Health Situational Analysis, North-Tongu District

Process Report 2 – Problem formulation and action orientation for Improving Health Care in Atsiekpoe-Battor

Process Report 1 – Strength & Problem Identification and Action Prioritization in