A Community Makes All the Difference
By Ján Michalko, PhD This guest blog was written by our Senior Project Ján for Education Sub-Saharan Africa (ESSA) in August 2020 at the launch of its African Scholarship Hub. Ján reflects on his doctoral fieldwork with university students in South Africa. He highlights the benefits of alumni networks for young women and men, who receive scholarships for their higher education. It was late 2016 and the calls for university fees ‘to fall’ in South Africa were entering their new peek. University students were once again organising marches and class disruptions. They were building on the discussions and changes they instigated with the Rhodes Must Fall campaign the previous year. Their goal was to shine light on the challenges that many young South Africans, especially racialized as Black/ African, faced in their quest to getting quality education, especially on tertiary levels. One of them was financial exclusion, which persisted despite the provision of national financial assistance and various bursary and scholarship schemes. …
NOVEMBER SPOTLIGHT SERIES: #3. PIPPA MILDRED, POLICE NOW
[et_pb_section admin_label=”section”] [et_pb_row admin_label=”row”] [et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_text admin_label=”Text”] At the beginning of November, we started a special month-long campaign. What makes it different from our previous blogs and stories, is that we have turned the spotlight on the work, skills and passions of our colleagues, who work at inHive’s partner organisations. These skilled project managers, team leaders and analysts from Pakistan, Rwanda and the UK are the hidden stars in our work. They are the doers, movers and shakers. They do it all: from the daily emails with alumni network leaders, to designing and delivering trainings, conducting surveys, and articulating the …
NOVEMBER SPOTLIGHT SERIES: #2. UNAZA USMAN, CARE FOUNDATION
Last week we start a special month-long campaign. What makes it different from our previous blogs and stories, is that we have turned the spotlight on the work, skills and passions of our colleagues, who work at inHive’s partner organisations. These skilled project managers, team leaders and analysts from Pakistan, Rwanda and the UK are the hidden stars in our work. They are the doers, movers and shakers. They do it all: from the daily emails with alumni network leaders, to designing and delivering trainings, conducting surveys, and articulating the strategic vision of alumni networks. They are indispensable part of …
November Spotlight Series: #1. Elie Mandela, the Mastercard Foundation.
Today we start a special month-long campaign. What makes it different from our previous blogs and stories, is that we are turning the spotlight on the work, skills and passions of our colleagues, who work at inHive’s partner organisations. These skilled project managers, team leaders and analysts from Pakistan, Rwanda and the UK are the hidden stars in our work. They are the doers, movers and shakers. They do it all: from the daily emails with alumni network leaders, to designing and delivering training, conducting surveys, and articulating the strategic vision of alumni networks. They are indispensable part of our …
Giving Options and Having Choices: How Young People Become the Focus of Alumni Committees
Written by Ján Michalko, edited by Madeleine Harris In late August the Mastercard Foundation officially launched its first alumni network committees in Ghana, Rwanda and Uganda, after several months of recruiting and onboarding young people and supporting them as they plan activities and communications campaigns. In this blog our Senior Project Lead, Ján, reflects on our experiences with putting young people at the center of the selection process and operationalizing our value commitment to being youth focused. It was close to 11 o’clock at night in California when I first met Zaharah for her interview to become one of the …
Building Alumni Networks for Kenyan Public Schools: Why it Matters
By Pauline Wanja, CEO, Future First Kenya This guest blog by Pauline wraps up the week-long series on alumni engagement in Kenya in times of COVID. Reflecting on her journey with FFK, Pauline charts out the future of the organisation and the Association of Alumni Communities as a vehicle to drive change in the country’s education system. When I joined Future First Kenya, my job description seemed straight forward: to pilot an alumni model in Kenyan schools, which was inspired by the success of a similar alumni engagement model in the UK. It was supported by a national survey …
Faith’s story: Growing up with children of military servicemen, Faith and her fellow alumni of Moi Forces Academy return to the barracks to talk to young people about their future.
By Ján Michalko (Faith’s story was part of the 2020 series on alumni association leaders in Kenya prepared by inHive in collaboration with Future First Kenya to commemorate the start of Term 3 of the school year, which was cancelled due to the COVID -19 pandemic) Know your past, to understand your future. This saying springs to my mind as Faith tells me about one of the online activities that she organised for the Moi Forces Academy (MFA) Alumni Association just a few weeks ago. The event showed the former students of the Academy the rich history of their school. …
Vedis’ story: As a student, Vedis wished for someone to guide him, so now he works with other alumni to advise students at St George’s Sikri to set them up for success
By Ján Michalko (Vedis’ story was part of the 2020 series on alumni association leaders in Kenya prepared by inHive in collaboration with Future First Kenya to commemorate the start of Term 3 of the school year, which was cancelled due to the COVID -19 pandemic) Vedis messages me that he is running late for our WhatsApp call. Nairobi traffic. That’s all he has to say. He is traveling back home from work at a warehouse, which stores medical supplies and pharmaceuticals. I imagine there is no shortage of work for him as COVID-19 spreads across Kenya and supplies need …
Alumni networks are for your school too
Written by Ján Michalko In this guest blog for the British Pakistan Foundation, Ján writes about alumni networks in the UK and Pakistan and introduces our work to members of the diaspora. He suggests that the networks are not limited to schools with substantial resources like Eton College in Berkshire or Aitchison College in Lahore. In contrary, he highlights that because they represent purposefully organised relationships with a shared vision, they can be set up around most school communities. What do you think of, when you hear ‘Eton’? Eton mess? The quintessentially British dessert with cream and strawberries. The town …
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