Our History
Nyame Bekyere Christian School first opened its doors in 1999 as Church of God Preparatory School. The school was built and founded by Mavis Chambers, Dr. Clifton Clarke, Hilda Clarke, Marcia Clarke, and Avis Parker. Nyame Bekyere is a village located in the Central Region of Ghana, West Africa.
The Need
In 1998 Dr. Clifton and Pastor Marcia Clarke were living in Ghana as missionaries and the other founders were visiting them from Nottingham UK. As they traveled down the winding road from the Cape Coast Castle into the Gomoah district, the mud hut villages visible from the main road caught the attention of the visitors and resulted in a detour towards the Nyame Bekyere village.
While the swarming of children elated by the visit was irresistible, the need seemed to be overwhelming. Dr. Clarke enquired from Sebastian the Village Chief as to the main need of the village. Without hesitation he said, “We need a school.” Feeling overcome by the poverty and the desperation the founders made up their minds to make a difference by building a school.
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The Vision
After returning to the UK, the ladies got to work rallying support for a school in the Nyame Bekyere village with the assistance of Joanne Clarke-Gordon, our Volunteer Child Sponsorship Coordinator, while back in Ghana, Dr. Clarke continued the fundraising and began the building project. Within weeks $10,000 was raised and the village project began. As missionaries in Ghana, Dr. Clarke & his wife, Marcia Clarke, organized and mobilized workers to build the school and staff to run it. For a number of years the school was managed by Vivian Attopley, a longtime family friend of the Clarkes.
The school trained village children in Mathematics, English, and reading for over ten years. The children in the village also learned to speak English which opened the opportunity for them to go on to study further, which many of them did. After the Clarkes moved from Ghana back to the UK, the school continued to operate for a couple of years and eventually closed after the teachers moved in 2011.
The Rebirth
In 2013, now a professor and pastor in the United States, Dr. Clarke returned to Nyame Bekyere with a mission team of university students. One of the mission team members, Dr. D’Lorah Butts-Lucas, asked the same question to one of the ladies in the village that Dr. Clarke asked of the village chief 15 years earlier; what do you need? The reply was the exact same, “We need a school.”
Dr. Butts-Lucas rallied her a few of her fellow mission team members, Darryl Burgan, Selikplim Gbordzi, Karen Ellis-Wilkins, Erica Knight, who were all deeply moved by the overall response, along with Dr. Clarke to re-open the school. The prayers of 15 year old villager Mavis were answered; God had sent someone to re-open the school.