Send Adaklu Students to College!
Donation protected
Hi Friends!
It's Molly and Gunnar. This summer, we are in Adaklu-Helekpe, a rural village in the Volta region of Ghana through Notre Dame's International Summer Service Learning Program (ISSLP). We are teaching in Adaklu Senior High Technical Secondary School and working with a local organization, Adaklu Youth Education Committee (AYEC) which was founded in 2000 in partnership with the US Peace Corps. AYEC's primary goal is to advance the educational and vocational opportunities available to young people in the Adaklu area.
Though the video explains the basics of our project, we'll take a moment to go into a bit more detail here. As mentioned, Ghana recently took a huge step forward in promoting its students' education--making all of its public secondary schools free of charge. Human Rights Watch released an article on the situation if you're interested in learning more about it. (https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/09/18/ghana-makes-secondary-schools-free)
All that said, AYEC's previous program, which provided 10 students with scholarships to attend secondary school is now (fortunately!) obsolete. Looking forward, they want to help their students take one step further in their education, and are looking to provide three students from the secondary school with college (called "tertiary school" in Ghana) scholarships in the fall. AYEC is excited that these changes allow them to look one step further than they could before, as it is becoming increasingly difficult for students to find well-paying jobs with only a secondary school education.
The scholarships will function more like loans. As scholarship students graduate from tertiary and find jobs, they will pay back their scholarship money to AYEC over an agreed-on period of time and agree to mentor a future secondary school student who is also looking to pursue tertiary education. AYEC anticipates that this model of support will encourage students to further their education, while remaining invested in their community. Long term, AYEC hopes that educating rural students will help such communities progress along with the rest of the country.
Thank you so much for your interest and support! We are so grateful. Feel free to reach out with absolutely any questions :)
Peace,
Molly and Gunnar
P.S. though AYEC itself does not have an internet presence, you can read more about the community from the ISSLP webpage, Molly's running journal/blog/google doc narrative of our summer, and this past ISSLP student's blog, which is what drew Molly to this community in the first place!
https://socialconcerns.nd.edu/international-summer-service-learning-program/ghana-adaklu-helekpe
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-fUEgVWNKUkjUckPcBFxW1p-z--6m5MjrxLNUhmPDeo/edit
https://alycekanabrocki.weebly.com/adaklu-helekpe.html (this is from several years ago, but still packed with info!)
It's Molly and Gunnar. This summer, we are in Adaklu-Helekpe, a rural village in the Volta region of Ghana through Notre Dame's International Summer Service Learning Program (ISSLP). We are teaching in Adaklu Senior High Technical Secondary School and working with a local organization, Adaklu Youth Education Committee (AYEC) which was founded in 2000 in partnership with the US Peace Corps. AYEC's primary goal is to advance the educational and vocational opportunities available to young people in the Adaklu area.
Though the video explains the basics of our project, we'll take a moment to go into a bit more detail here. As mentioned, Ghana recently took a huge step forward in promoting its students' education--making all of its public secondary schools free of charge. Human Rights Watch released an article on the situation if you're interested in learning more about it. (https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/09/18/ghana-makes-secondary-schools-free)
All that said, AYEC's previous program, which provided 10 students with scholarships to attend secondary school is now (fortunately!) obsolete. Looking forward, they want to help their students take one step further in their education, and are looking to provide three students from the secondary school with college (called "tertiary school" in Ghana) scholarships in the fall. AYEC is excited that these changes allow them to look one step further than they could before, as it is becoming increasingly difficult for students to find well-paying jobs with only a secondary school education.
The scholarships will function more like loans. As scholarship students graduate from tertiary and find jobs, they will pay back their scholarship money to AYEC over an agreed-on period of time and agree to mentor a future secondary school student who is also looking to pursue tertiary education. AYEC anticipates that this model of support will encourage students to further their education, while remaining invested in their community. Long term, AYEC hopes that educating rural students will help such communities progress along with the rest of the country.
Thank you so much for your interest and support! We are so grateful. Feel free to reach out with absolutely any questions :)
Peace,
Molly and Gunnar
P.S. though AYEC itself does not have an internet presence, you can read more about the community from the ISSLP webpage, Molly's running journal/blog/google doc narrative of our summer, and this past ISSLP student's blog, which is what drew Molly to this community in the first place!
https://socialconcerns.nd.edu/international-summer-service-learning-program/ghana-adaklu-helekpe
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-fUEgVWNKUkjUckPcBFxW1p-z--6m5MjrxLNUhmPDeo/edit
https://alycekanabrocki.weebly.com/adaklu-helekpe.html (this is from several years ago, but still packed with info!)
Organizer
Molly Clark
Organizer
Notre Dame, IN
