Free Education for Rural Children & Youth in Ghana

Overview:

Our project, which aims to provide free education to the youth in rural areas, particularly in Ayenya Community, has completed another successful quarter. We have continued to make significant strides in ensuring access to quality education, empowering the youth, and uplifting the community through various educational initiatives and programs. This report highlights our progress, challenges faced, and key achievements during the third quarter of 2023.

Progress Update:

• Enrollment Growth: The number of students enrolled in our educational program will be increasing by 20% by the end of October as we look to financially support more teenage students with secondary and tertiary education and vocational training. 
• Community Engagement: Our project has been successful in fostering stronger ties with the local community and local school. We partnered with the American International School in September to put together a sports engagement for the students in the community school and mini engagement workshop with the teachers. As part of our ongoing efforts to improve the learning environment, we are almost done with the refurbishment of the three Junior High School classrooms and teachers office space. This will provide better facilities for the growing student population. 
• Challenges Faced:Resource Constraints: Despite our efforts to secure additional funding and support, increased inflation cost is a challenge that motivates us to work harder to acquire the necessary resources to sustain the project's growth. This has limited our ability to scale our operations and implement certain planned initiatives effectively.

• Key Achievements:Empowerment of Female Students: One of our first recipients of our program has completed her secondary school education after successfully writing her final exams during the end of September. She is now looking forward to further her education at the tertiary level as we continue to support and guide her dreams and aspirations.

• Student Progression: Our university beneficiary students have completed their first year of university and will be beginning their second year in the coming months. 

Future Plans:

• Sustainable Funding Initiatives: We plan to intensify our efforts to secure sustainable funding through partnerships with local foundations, NGOs, and educational institutions, ensuring the continuity and expansion of our project.
• Quality & Professional Human Resource & Mentoring: We intend to reach out to more professional and experienced educators and social workers to establish a a team that supports in improving our program quality and implementation as well as provide professional guidance and mentorship to our students and local teachers, fostering a supportive environment for their personal and professional growth.

Conclusion:

Despite certain challenges, our project has continued to make significant progress in providing free education to selected  rural youth of Ayenya. We remain committed to our mission of empowering the youth and contributing to the overall development of the community. We express our sincere gratitude to all our stakeholders, supporters, and volunteers for their unwavering dedication and support.

We look forward to overcoming the upcoming challenges and achieving even greater milestones in the last quarter of 2023.

As part of our mission to equip and empower the children and youth of Ayenya village, a small farming community on the outskirts of Accra, we supported two recent graduates of the Ayenya D/A Basic School with educational resources and financial aid towards their secondary school education, increasing our educational support beneficiaries to 6. As our revenue increases, we will continue to support more deserving students in the village. 

Impact Youth Foundation through the Sports Leadership Academy (SLAC) and Starfish The Foundation also provided financial aid to two Senior High School graduates from the village who gained admission to university this academic year. The two, Portia Kwame and Francis Botoza, both play multiple sports and are passionate about inspiring other children and youth in their community to pursue education and work toward their dreams. 

On Ghana's Independence day (March 6), we launced a new movement dubbed "Be the Difference." The purpose of this movement is to inspire adolescents, youth, and adults to take ownership of the development of our nation by giving back As part of the launch, Impact Youth Foundation organized a service trip to the Ayenya village, where members of the SLAC Community Sports Club in Accra donated school stationery and engaged in peer mentoring  activities with over 200 boys and girls from the Ayenya D/A Basic School. The donation included exercise books, pens, pencils, rulers, erasers, mathematical sets and snacks for the day. 

The peer-to-peer sessions were led and faciliated by our older athletes (13-18 years) who shared their personal experiences, aspirations and life lessons. They used this opportunity to encourage the children and youth of the Ayenya Community to stay in school and work toward achieving their dreams.

We also hosted the Ghana must read club at the school where we spent the day reading to and with the students in order to cultivate and inspire the spirit of reading within the community. We continue to support the community by providing education resources, hosting sports and educational clinics and working to complete the on-going classroom structure.