Through the AHEAD initiative, the RECIRCULATE and ACTUATE GCRF projects successfully worked with a school in one of Accra’s (Ghana) low-income communities.

The ‘Science in the School’ initiative helped the school to introduce its pupils to placed-based transformative learning in their formative stages. The school was able to introduce children from the surrounding low-income communities, where poor sanitation is routine, to the concepts of the emerging science of safe circular sanitation.

The innovative projects established and gifted an off-grid anaerobic digester and a show-lab inside Umar Bun Hatab School by integrating and working with a stakeholder collective involving researchers (local and LU), and local business partners, NGO workers, community leaders and the school.

The off-grid micro- digester was built, and a lab-space created, which allowed pupils to experiment with the products of the digester (biogas and organic fertiliser) which were extracted from the school’s toilet containments. This ‘solar powered circular sanitation experiment’ extended the earlier collaboration with the school.

The Umar Bun Hatab School has continued to draw a lot of interest from other schools in Accra. Many schools have taken their students to see the show lab. Furthermore, there has been an interest about this project from other countries across Africa (Malawi, Nigeria, Tanzania) and South and East Asia (Bangladesh, Indonesia, Malaysia).

The AHEAD initiative, therefore, aims to build on these early successes and interests to assemble a Headteachers Forum from across the DAC countries.