During the 5-day leadership training programme, student participants were challenged to push their boundaries and enhance their leadership skills in a competitive yet fun environment.
A group of students from different high schools across Ghana this week participated in an engaging programme for teenagers, "Emerge at Ashesi", that allows young leaders to develop their skills in self-leadership, communication, public speaking, critical thinking, teamwork and entrepreneurship.
The 5-day programme, organised in partnership with Emerge Leadership Ghana, was designed to complement traditional classroom education with personal and leadership development training, and allowed participants to learn from and be inspired by young coaches and entrepreneurs.
The students stayed on Ashesi’s campus throughout the duration of the programme, and were mentored by a team of coaches that included Ashesi students and alumni. The focus of 'EMERGE at Ashesi' was on small group coaching and skills development that allowed participants to learn through hands-on experiential learning activities.
Throughout the week, they were taken through several skill-building challenges and sessions, and received coaching from some of Ghana’s leading communications and entrepreneurship experts, including Dr. Esi Ansah, Professor at Ashesi and CEO of Axis Human Capital, and Kafui Dey, Media and Advertising Professional.
“The things we have been exposed to during ‘Emerge at Ashesi’ are not things that we would have typically learned in most of our classrooms, especially in public schools,” said Otema Opoku-Sintim, who was one of the programme participants. “This experience has broadened and changed my thinking, and I feel more responsible for my actions.”
Participants also heard from Ashesi alumni who had moved on to become successful entrepreneurs, and engaged the alums in discussions that highlighted the skills and character traits that young people needed to learn to move into entrepreneurship.
“Emerge at Ashesi was a springboard for me. The environment and coaches made it extremely easy to learn about leadership,” added Nana Akuffo-Kwapong, who also participated in the programme. “We were taught to think critically and properly analyse any situation, something we hardly learn elsewhere. It was a fantastic experience.”
“We’ve had an amazing experience,” said Errol Lawson, co-founder of Emerge Leadership Ghana. “Over the five days the students have been working on a wide range of learning challenges, and they have been phenomenal. Almost all the participants have rated this a 10/10 experience, and we hope that they are going out there to make a practical difference in their local communities.”