It’s back! After our hugely successful campaign last year, Future First Global are launching this year’s Back to School campaign, and we need you!
‘Back to School Week’ is a global campaign running from May 8th to 26th in order to galvanize people around the world to think about how they can support their former schools. The campaign combines exciting in-school engagements for alumni and students, online engagement, and an ongoing campaign across the year.
Our research found that 52% of alumni would be willing to give back to their old school, but that only 2% had. We want to change that. We believe every student should have the best quality education and support, regardless of background. Alumni help make this happen; they can have a transformative impact on the lives and learning experience of students, and their ability to make a smooth transition from education into employment.
An International Campaign
We’re really excited to be working with partners across the world to create an alumni volunteering movement that reflects the needs of and supports students around the world, which is why this campaign is about three things: encouraging alumni to go back to their old schools through events and an online campaign; creating a space for a conversation about how alumni can best be of use to students, schools and societies; and acting as a launchpad for a wider volunteering movement throughout the next year.
The engagement from partners has been really inspiring, and we are looking forward to seeing a range of hugely valuable events throughout the year. In Liberia we’re delighted to be working once again with partners YOCEL, a grassroots NGO promoting quality education, who are designing an ongoing programme called The Power of a Story, which will provide monthly opportunities for students to receive insights from alumni into how to overcome some of the challenges they might face during their school career or transition into work. We are also really pleased to be working again with JumpStart Academy Africa, who are delivering the campaign in Cameroon and Togo. The fantastic team there have put together a diverse programme of events for alumni and students to meet and engage across schools in the two countries, including an evening of traditional dance, IT lessons, sports events, and debates. In Sierra Leone, the ever-inspiring Educaid will be running careers events Meanwhile in Kenya, Future First Kenya are busy preparing for the big launch with a representative from the Ministry of Education.
Beyan Flomo Pewee, Founder and Executive Director of YOCEL, Liberia, said ‘alumni networks are important because they fill a gap that [others] can’t… This campaign will give Liberia a sense of how alumni networks or communities can dramatically change the society, helping alleviate poverty and illiteracy.’
What could you give?
It all kicks off this week with our online campaign – follow us for all the latest updates and exciting content @FutureFirstInt. You can get involved by changing your profile picture to your old school photo, as well as contributing to the conversation and hearing more about all the exciting events happening throughout the campaign!
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