Back to School Campaign: Day 2 + 3
Two-week campaign mobilises citizens to support their old schools across 10 countries in Europe, Africa and Asia The last 2 days saw the Back to School campaign turn truly international. The alumni of TVS Academy in Hosur (India) went into a local school to give careers talks and help paint a school mural. In Cameroon, the Delegate of Secondary Education officially endorsed the Back to School Campaign and encouraged the citizens of Cameroon to go back to their former schools to inspire the youth. In Ghana, our partner was invited to speak at the 25th anniversary celebrations at Oguaa Senior …
Back to School Week: My Journey With CARE Singapore
Thomas Goh, from CARE Singaporean is a guest blogger on our Back to School Campaign. CARE run mentoring and life skills programmes with at-risk young people in school. Thomas attended one of their programmes when he was in school, and now works for the organisation. Here is Thomas’s journey with CARE Singapore: It was almost 20 years ago when I was introduced to the mentoring programme through CARE Singapore. I was only 13 years old. I was never interested in my studies and always looking for opportunity to skip lessons. I was never that motivated kid that enjoys school. On one …
Asante Shule Campaign: Day 1
My first day working on the Asante Shule campaign felt uncannily like my first day back at school. There was excitement, there was confusion, there was nostalgia, and there was a sense of novelty. The campaign, run by Future First Kenya, wants to encourage alumni to go back and give back to their former schools. The first day of the Asante Shule campaign kicked off in CBD at the Kencom bus station. Armed with whiteboards and pens, we took to the streets and asked people what they would like to tell their 16-year-old self. What they wish they had known …
Launching the Global Back to School Week
Imagine if every school in the world was a community. Imagine if every young person had access to a network of relatable role models, work experience and mentors, all alumni of their school, from their communities; all ready to go back and give back. That is the vision of Future First Global. The ‘Back to School’ campaign (‘Asante Shule’ in Kenya) will be held during the first week in February to mobilise every former student to think about what they can do for their old school. Why Future First Global’s international research (conducted with polling through IPSOS) reveals that while …
Harnessing the power of communications and alumni
Our vision is to make Kenya the third country, after the UK and Germany, where national-scale support for alumni programming exists, focusing in this case on the communities most in need. In order to develop a national alumni strategy for Kenya and place alumni engagement at the heart of government policy, advocacy and campaigning is one of our key objectives. While this might seem daunting for a small charity like ours, we managed to secure support from BBH London, one of the world’s most famous creative advertising agencies, with the help from The International Exchange (or TIE, for short – …
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 …
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