Nana Umar College Tuition for Johnson & Wales

Nana Umar is a 19 year old international student who started as a freshman in the Biology/Health Sciences program at Johnson & Wales University in Providence, Rhode Island in September, 2019.  Nana has received a $21,000 four year renewable You Are Welcome Here Scholarship to attend JWU, and she just started working on campus, but she is not eligible for federal financial aid or student loans.  She still needs about $10,000 to cover her full costs of attending. Nana is a determined, outgoing, and optimistic young woman whose goal is to become a doctor and return to northern Nigeria to provide health care to women and girls who are often prevented by their husbands and fathers from being treated by male doctors.  Her family of seven makes less than $1000 per year,  and Nana has overcome years of  poverty, homelessness, terrorist attacks, and the recent destruction of her mother's hair kiosk, their main source of income, during an outbreak of religious violence.  As her AFS host mom and US Sponsor, I will be disbursing any donations made to help Nana continue her education at JWU  and I have committed to covering Nana's travel, personal expenses, books, and room and board.  She will be extremely appreciative  of your assistance and make you proud to have supported her.

In 2018, Nana was one of 18 students out of 800 applicants from Nigeria accepted into the US State Department sponsored YES program to have the chance to study at an American high school. She was an exchange student at Falmouth High School in Falmouth, Massachusetts where she touched many people's lives through the many presentations she gave about her country and by volunteering weekly at the Falmouth Service Center food pantry.  In Nigeria, she was ranked first among science students in her class, served as "head girl" of her school for four years, and led many education campaigns at local schools and in rural communities about HIV/AIDS, sickle cell anemia, and preventing infectious diseases.