In July 2016, 33 young men and women completed Teach for Ghana’s first training workshop held at Ashesi, becoming inaugural fellows for the organisation. The six-week workshop focused on equipping the fellows with transferable leadership skills, which would allow them to radically improve teaching practice, school culture, and educational outcomes in Ghana’s underserved communities.
The workshop was the start of a growing relationship between Ashesi and Teach for Ghana, with the two organisations sharing similar goals of transformation through education. Teach for Ghana’s initial fellows included two Ashesi alumni, and over the past two years, Ashesi has provided nearly $40,000 in assistance to support Teach for Ghana’s mission in Ghana. In addition, faculty from Ashesi serve on Teach for Ghana’s board, helping it grow its mission.
“Ashesi’s support has been remarkable in helping establish our program,” says Daniel Dotse, CEO for Teach for Ghana. “At the workshop, access to professors, resources and facilities were a great opportunity for our fellows in enriching their experience. Besides benefiting from Ashesi’s campus as our home base, the access to the schools in the Berekuso community, helped our fellows practise some of the things we were teaching at the workshop.”
Today, Teach for Ghana’s inaugural fellows are spread across 12 junior high schools, in 3 districts in the Volta Region, helping to transform education outcomes in the communities.
“There’s been tremendous impact; not just in the students, but in the schools and communities they’re working.” says Daniel. “For some of the parents who had previously been disinterested in their children’s education, seeing a Teach for Ghana fellow in their homes, sharing a vision of child education, changes the narrative.”
One of the fellows, Ashesi alumna Naa Korkoi Larmie ’16, decided to join the Teach for Ghana fellowship right after she graduated. For her, it came out of a strong sense of the inequality around her.
“Seeing children hawking on the streets, the state of street children in Ghana and several vices they are exposed to breaks my heart,” Naa explains. “There is so much untapped potential out there, simply because they didn’t have the choice, didn’t have the right support systems, or weren’t informed or exposed to growth opportunities. I didn't want to look away or just join in on complaining about it. I wanted to play an active part in solving this problem.”
Through Teach for Ghana’s fellowship, Naa and the other fellows get the opportunity to reach out to children in underserved communities in Ghana. In the second year of their fellowship, aside their roles as teachers in the classrooms, the fellows work also focus on addressing challenges within their communities.
“Having alumni from Ashesi working as part of the fellowships and within our organizations, not only adds to help enrich our diversity and magnify our impact,” said Daniel. “The ability to spread the Ashesi education through fellows like Naa Korkoi is immensely impactful to our students in the classrooms. It also helps enrich the diversity of conversations and experiences among the rest of our fellows.”