They Left. We Stayed.

What we saw after USAID pulled out — and why this model matters now more than ever.

The school was quiet when we arrived.

It sat at the edge of a dusty road in the Northern Region, one of many we visited during our fieldwork this spring. Inside the classroom, 70 students were squeezed onto worn benches. The chalkboard was cracked. The bookshelves were bare. One teacher stood at the front of the room, holding a single sheet of paper.

“I print one worksheet a week,” she told us, “with my own money. It’s all I can afford.”

Just two years ago, this school was part of a USAID-funded literacy initiative. The program provided books, community reading camps, teacher coaching, and hope. For the first time, teachers felt equipped, students were improving, and the headmaster believed real change was possible.

Then, without warning, it ended.

When USAID froze or canceled over 80% of its international education funding this year, many programs across Ghana were quietly shut down. NGOs packed up and left, not out of bad faith, but because their funding vanished. In the Northern Region, where needs are high and resources already thin, the impact has been devastating. Progress has reversed. Materials have disappeared. Motivation has collapsed.

But the students? They’re still showing up.

At that same school, we saw a girl sitting at the back of the classroom. No shoes. No books. Just a small, worn notebook in her lap. She wasn’t part of any official program. She just came every day, hoping someone might teach her something.

She’s why we stayed.

Built to Stay

Create Change was never built to depend on large-scale aid or volatile government grants. That’s not a system we trust to deliver long-term change. Our work is powered by:

• Private donors who believe in this mission

• Canadian youth who raise funds as part of our leadership and confidence programs

• A belief that real change happens when communities lead — and when partnerships are built to last
  

Because of this, we’re still here. While others disappeared “in the night,” we’re returning to the same schools, reconnecting with the same teachers, and picking up where the programs left off. We’re training educators, building trust, and investing in girls who were left behind, again.

The Difference Is You

What we saw in that classroom wasn’t just a gap in resources, it was a gap in commitment. The kind that only long-term, people-powered support can fill.

That’s why your donation isn’t just generous, it’s necessary.

It keeps us on the ground, showing up, again and again, for the teachers and students who don’t have another option. It protects progress from being swept away by the next political decision. And it reminds every girl sitting in the back of a broken classroom that someone did come back for her.

Thank you for making that possible.