Alumni Awards Motivate Current Students to Work Hard
By Pauline Wanja, Programme Manager in Kenya TumuTumu public High School for girls is a couple of hours outside Nairobi, in Kenya. Almost 900 students at the school came together on 8 March for an all-day careers event to hear from former students of their school about their careers and to discuss future options, life skills and more. The event, led by the alumni and facilitated by Future First Kenya, was the first of the kind at the school. Students heard from and spoke at length with 21 alumni, including a civil engineer, a banker, a photographer and a Human …
Alumni Stories from Kenya: Why I Serve in the Board of my Former High School
By Pauline Wanja, Programme Manager in Kenya The concept of alumni volunteering is not alien in Kenyan Schools. Our initial national survey indicated that 78% of Kenyans would be willing to give back to their former school if asked and 1% percent had done so. For the past two years, Future First Global explored various ways in which to engage alumni with their former schools. We mobilized alumni from 15 schools to conduct career assemblies and workshops in their former schools. A report documenting the learning of our pilot programme indicates that alumni programming functions well and that former students can have a …
Building school alumni networks in Liberia on the back of Ebola but the foundation of experience
Reflections from Liberia by Pauline Wanja, Programme Manager in Kenya I am writing on a flight back home to Nairobi, after an exciting week in Liberia, discussing and planning for an “An alumni community for every school in Liberia”. The return flight is 12 hours and I have plenty of time to reflect on my trip as I scroll through the hundreds of photographs of the week. In one of the photos I am in a circle of men who are trying to get a word in as they are sharing stories of their work and talking me through the …
Unleashing the potential of young people in Liberia: a new initiative
[gdlr_quote align=”center” ]“An engaged alumni community prepares the way for a brighter future” said Beyan Flomo Pewee, Executive Director of YOCEL.[/gdlr_quote] It is a brighter future for young people across Liberia, which a new joint initiative is aiming to achieve. The initiative, developed by Future First Global, in partnership with YOCEL, is being launched this week to enable Liberian schools to be supported by thriving and engaged alumni communities, which can support young people as they transition from school into further education, training or the world of work. The initiative launches in eighteen pilot schools later this year, after an …
A small part of the solution: How our work can improve the relevance of education to a young person’s life
Today the UNESCO Global Monitoring report is launched in the UK. The report focuses on the progress, or lack thereof, countries have made on achieving the Education For All Goals. It further identifies lessons for the education sector as we finalize and start implementing a new framework. One thing the report highlights is that children are not learning what they need at school to prepare them for their future. “The main education challenge our country faces is the lack of relevant education. The education our children are receiving is not relevant to their lives and does not prepare them to …
Future First Global Shortlisted for Bond Innovation Award
Future First Global Recognised For Innovative Secondary School Alumni Programmes Future First Global was recognised for its innovative school-to-work transition programme at the Bond International Development Awards yesterday, 1 June, in London. Now in their second year, the awards recognise the contributions of many of Bond’s member organisations, working in some of the most challenging environments around the world. The entries were judged by a high-profile panel of experts and the winners of the Innovation, Humanitarian, the Positive Collaboration and the Inspiring Campaign awards were announced by guest presenter Dharsna Soni, from Channel 4 News.The Innovation Awards category celebrates international …
We’re Hiring! Managing Director, Future First Global
Position: Managing Director Based: London, United Kingdom Salary range: £40-£50k Future First Global is a recently established charity working to turn schools into communities around the world. We advise governments, school networks and NGOs on how to mobilise former students as careers and educational role models, work experience providers, mentors, school governors and more. When Future First was launched in the UK five years ago, less than 1% of non-selective state secondary schools ran alumni networks. Today that number is over 20% and we are seeing a similar growth trajectory in Kenya. Future First Global was launched on the back …
Nurturing the next generation of young Kenyan women
Pauline Wanja is Future First Kenya Programme and Advocacy Manager. It is a sunny Saturday and this weekend’s alumni events takes me to a school nestled in the leafy suburbs of Nairobi. The school is one of the oldest national public girls school in the country, the 100 year old buildings make for a spectacular view and working on Saturday afternoon feels like an adventure. Today’s event brings together 150 student from The Kenya High School and 21 alumni and mentors for an afternoon sessions titled “One more step into my career Journey”. The first session is a plenary session …
University alumni networks are about so much more than making money
Emily Laurie, Managing Director of Future First Global, blogs on what university alumni networks have in common with alumni networks for secondary schools. I was lucky to do an MSc at a brilliant university – the London School of Economics – and want to stay connected to what is such a great establishment. But in reality when I see emails from LSE Alumni, I tend to delete them out of an assumption they will be asking for money. Well not anymore! Yesterday I went to meet with some members of the LSE alumni team, as at Future First Global we are interested to …
It is time to unleash the potential of former students to give back in the Arab Region
In the Arab region youth unemployment currently stands at 29%. There is an urgent need to create jobs for young people and provide them with the skills, guidance, confidence, empowerment and education to prepare them for the job market. Finding solutions to this is the focus of the Arab Youth Employment Forum taking place this week in Amman, Jordan. One innovative solution to this daunting situation is mentoring, which can support Arab youth to develop entrepreneurial skills and thinking as well as gain an understanding of their areas of talent and support their leadership development. Our global research study of the …
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