Everton in the Community have been in Ghana, helping build and renovate a primary school.
The organisation has also provided children with essentials to improve their everyday lives.
Partnering with African Adventures, volunteers have been painting classrooms, building toilet facilities and providing educational lessons during a 10-day trip.
Everton in the Community are one of the leading football charities in England, and aims to make a social impact in Liverpool and beyond.
Volunteer Danny Prentice was in the Volta region of Ghana and explained what he was being doing on a daily basis.
He told MerseySportLive: “We’ve been doing lessons. We did an art lesson where they drew Everton crests, and they coloured in the stadium.”
They also did singing lessons where the children were taught Everton songs as well as a history lesson on Everton Football Club.
Each volunteer brought a donation suitcase which was filled with items to help people in the area.
These included clothing, football kits, boots, school uniforms, sports equipment, toys, exercise books, stationary, pencils, pens and toothbrushes.
The volunteers have been helping build a wall on the school premises to improve the school’s security.
Danny is a Sports Coach at Everton in the Community and works with primary schools.
He said: “I do the soccer camps with Everton in the summer. I’ve been to Jersey, Isle of Man, Wales, Ireland, and then local schools as well.”
Each year, Eitc supports tens of thousands of individuals from across the Liverpool City Region through more than 60 projects and initiatives.
When they arrived in Ghana, Danny and volunteers received a warm welcome at the primary school.
He said: “They did an initiation dance for us where they had lads on the drums and girls dancing to welcome us to their school.”
Danny noticed that the children had never seen a tattoo before and they began trying to rub off the ink on his leg, hoping they could transfer the ink onto their skin.
He said: “On the first day, when we got to the school, the minute the kids saw us, they all ran to the front, jumping on us, trying to hold our hands and touch our skin.”
The most rewarding aspect of the trip for Danny was seeing the smiles on the children’s faces.
He said: “I think just how lucky and privileged we are to have the resources and the accessibility of the resources because it’s a different way here.
“I think how easy we’ve got a back home, you know, the simple things here, you wouldn’t even think about them at home.”
This is the first time EITC have visited Ghana – for the last two years, they went to Kenya.
Danny said: “It connects everyone, even if you can’t speak the same language as someone, you can speak to them just by kicking a ball and having a laugh, seeing a smile on their face.”
Volunteering in another country was always something that he wanted to do and it has opened his eyes up to experiences he would never otherwise have seen.
He said if he ever had the opportunity to do this again, he wouldn’t think twice about it:
He said: “Just seeing how different life is and the culture, if anyone gets the chance to do it, they should bite their hand off because it’s just to see the world from a different angle.”
