Annie
Twombly, 2014 HNC Certificate alum, shares an update from Kumasi, Ghana! She
is now working for as the Communications Manager for Exponential Education.
Read on to hear more her experiences working in Ghana.
Exponential Education is a nonprofit based in
Kumasi, Ghana. Its aim is to make education more accessible to Ghanaian middle
school and high school students, particularly those who are struggling with the
coursework or who are unable to pay tuition fees. Expo (as it is fondly
referred to around the office) addresses this with a double-edged sword: by
partnering with the administrators and teachers of schools in the communities
surrounding Kumasi, the organization is able to identify junior high students
who would benefit from after-school tutoring. Then moving to the high schools,
Expo again works with the administration to identify the top performing
students with financial needs. With these two student groups identified by
school administrations, Expo pairs them together in a program known as
Peer-to-Peer Tutoring: the identified high school students become paid tutors
for the middle school students who are struggling to maintain high academic
performance.
This is the heart behind Exponential
Education: that students are empowered and enabled to help themselves succeed
and continue with their education. Expo staff is present as support for each
Peer-to-Peer Program, with each Program Associate facilitating the work of 5
tutors and approximately 30 middle school students. Other staff includes
general facilitators for Programs, Operations, Communications, and Donor
Relations.
I have been on the ground here in Ghana for a
week, and already have seen Exponential Education reach a milestone: October 17th
was the first Girls Leadership Conference, a product of Expo’s pilot Girls LEAP
Program. For one Saturday, the participating girls from three different high
schools all met together for a day of teambuilding, question and answer time
with women in leadership positions in their field (a head nurse, a
headmistress, a career-woman with children), and brainstorming ways to build
confidence and develop leadership skills. All this was centered on the theme
“No Single Story” in reference to Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s piece The
Danger of a Single Story. The significance of this theme lies in allowing
girls – and all people – to understand that they are not defined by one
identity (such as being a girl) but are a complicated person that is made up of
multiple identities (such as a girl, a sister, a dancer, an aspiring pilot, a
leader). This idea had a powerful impact on the participants, culminating with
each girl writing and performing poems that declared their confidence, rejected
the opposition they might face, and most often ended with a smile and a laugh
of joy. I couldn’t have asked for a more inspiring welcome to the work
Exponential Education is doing, and very much look forward to the work of this
next year.
Annie
Twombly, 2014 HNC Certificate Alum
