Abubakar Zico Newton changing educational narrative in Madina Zongo

Chancing on a report indicating that people with pre-school experience were likely to be in school far more than those without pre-school education was the spark Ishaq Abubakar Zico Newton needed to turn around the fortunes of young people in Madina Zongo.

Growing up in the same community where pre-school was not valued as he himself was not a beneficiary, Ish­aq Abubakar Zico Newton decided to change the narrative of the children with the help of his mother’s already established foundation.

The foundation started on the com­pound of his home as an afternoon classes for children in the community.

“It was the brainchild of my aunt who never had the opportunity to go to school but always felt that educa­tion was going to be the game-chang­er in the near future.”

With this in mind, his aunt start­ed a free after school classes in the afternoon.

The classes helped children with their home works as their parents could neither read nor write. This single act by his aunt really impacted the lives of most children in the com­munity.

“My mother took over after the death of my aunty when she returned from Ger­many and thought it wise to create a foun­dation around it. She named it ‘Mother for all Foundation.’’’

She later took the foundation to an­other level by supporting the founda­tion with books for the children and paying the teacher to continue the afternoon classes.

In 2010, King Zico, as he is affec­tionately called in the community, felt the need to support his mother’s idea and take the foundation a notch higher.

With his educational background, he turned it into a pre-school for children in Madina Zongo where children from the ages of two to five years have access to free pre-school education.

Currently, there are about 250 children in the school which initially started with only two children.

“The goal of the foundation is to educate and also help improve on the educational standard of the people within Madina Zongo,” he said.

According to Mr Newton, most of the people supporting the foundation were beneficiaries of the afternoon classes started by his aunt.

He said the foundation embarked on several projects including a ‘Readcamp’ aimed at enhancing the literacy skills of school pupils, a play-based training programme for educators and facilitators with inno­vative tools to transform classrooms.

“Other projects included mask up and sanitise campaign and covid-19 food relief project,” he stated.

He said that over the period of eight years, close to thousand youths and children have had their lives transformed through the foundation.

Background

Zico loves to describe himself as Zongo boy who at a point real­ised that actors of change are community people who wish to see the change in their communities.

He grew up from a very deprived family where he and his siblings as well as friends had to go look for mangoes in the bush and sell.

At other times “we looked for ‘alumi’ in the gutters and in people’s homes and at times we have just pick peoples cooking utensils at their blind side, crash them and sell,” adding that “that was how we survived.”

Education

King Zico never had a pre-school experience. He started school at Gospel International School in Madina Estates. After owing so much in terms of fees, he secured a scholarship from the school.

This followed the head­master’s decision to allow him attend the school for free because it was obvious he couldn’t pay.

He move from there to the Faith Community Baptist School where he had my Junior High School (JHS) education

King Zico continued to the West African Secondary School (WASS) but could not write the final examination because “my name was synonymous to school fees arrears.”

King Zico later registered for Nov/ Dec and continued to the Institute of Professional Studies (IPS) now Uni­versity of Professional Studies, Accra (UPSA) where he studied Diploma in Business Studies (DBS) with account­ing option.

“I was of the hope that I will be able to secure a job with the certifi­cate, but unfortunately, I did not, so I ended up on the streets again and did some basic jobs and finally enrolled myself into the African University College of Communication.’’

Hobby

At his spare time, King Zico loves to listen to music and enjoys rice and stew at any given time.

By Esinam Jemima Kuatsinu