Global Citizenship Conference 2017 — Part 2

We believe that Global Citizenship comes to fruition when put in action. So we took the conference out into the field! Over two days, conference participants, together with our local project partners, joined hearts, hands and minds to tackle pressing challenges that local communities in Berekuso (Ghana) are facing.

Working in small teams, conference participants and project partners become learners and solvers alike. Support by top notch mentors, they pooled resources, capacities and experiences to generate possible solutions for the identified challenge.

Here is an insider’s view into the activities of the hands-on GCC projects:

EduCare: Educare is a project initiated by Ashesi Fellow (Hudson Lakunse) and is meant to work with a kindergarten school in Berekuso to improve literacy and creativity. A group of Melton Fellows joined Educare’s team to design a new methods of evaluation and enhancing the children’s learning capabilities. By developing a progress record in the form of a school file, teachers can stay organized and create a more stimulating environment in the classroom.

Bowney: Bowney aims to aims to empower underprivileged female high school students from the Berekuso township by maximizing their educational, financial, social and spiritual potential. A team of 15 participants and Bowney project leaders embarked on a field trip through Berekuso. There, they had conversations with girls who are currently attending Bowney’s program, their parents and the community administrative officer. Inspired especially by a girl Sheila who told them: “I want to be a journalist, singer and dancer. I need help and I will come back and help more girls.”, the group worked in the afternoon to illustrate a sustainable plan which will assist girls on their way pursuing own dreams by providing mentoring programs, future designing talks and   financial self-support advice.

The Ahote Sanitation Project (TASaP): A Berekuso based sanitation project, Ahote seeks to promote environmental sustainability among teenagers. Kwabena, a co-founder of Ahote showed us the community and the current state of their project results (there were container on a dumpsite space with collected rubbish). Interviews allowed us to gain more information about peoples perspective on the sanitation and trash in the community. The second Session was all about Design Thinking and building upon our field research from the morning. What an inspiring process!

TechEra: Tech Era is about bringing IT literary and skills in Robotics to children living in impoverished communities. Fellows attempted to find ways to make it even better through empathy and design thinking.We later sat down as a team to write down the views we had from the interview as well as our observations. Through card sorting in the design thinking process we ideated and came up with our point of view statements for both the teacher and the students. Working with the POV statement of the student, we discussed ways through which we could fuse the student’s interest with IT to make learning interesting, fun and engaging for them.Four of our students came over with their Information Communication Technology (ICT) teacher to show us a typical class session they have for ICT lessons. The team made observations during this period which went on for an hour.

Sesa Mu: Sesa Mu is a newly developed local NGO in Ghana that grows dried pineapples within greater Accra. The Melton Foundation held design thinking workshops where fellows worked alongside this growing entrepreneur pineapple business to produce a prototype that would service the business and community. They worked together to enhance consumer base and expand building capacity for optimal economic growth. The day came to an end with team check-outs and a reflection on the progress made during the day. Teams also discussed and presented a point of view on their projects.