Student's Entrepreneurs Forum for High Schools

Vital Stats

Awin P

  • people helped 5
  • People Doing It300

The Problem

There is a tremendous need, especially for many youth growing in the northern part of Ghana, and who come from mostly low-income neighborhoods, for programs that develops their capacity to lead development activities in their communities. In a developing region like ours, the youth are struggling for direction especially for adolescents who need positive opportunities to keep themselves safe and useful. Adolescence is the period in life when people develop their identities as individuals, begin to explore wider social relations, and interact independently with the broader community. Most leadership theorists believe that the skills critical for effective leadership, including the capacity to understand and interact with others, are developed most deeply in adolescence and young adulthood.

Plan of Action

. Currently there are more than 300 high school students who are enrolled into the program and 500 more students from 3 additional high schools will be enrolled into the program. Under the SEF program, students receive leadership training and begin to design initiatives that will help them develop their leadership skills to drive change in their communities. Engaging high school youth in activities that build their capacity to become successful adult leaders in future is at the core of the SEF program. The program has two overarching goals: to build active communities in high schools as a platform to provide training in leadership skills; and engage students in making their communities better places to live. Our program ensures that students benefit from our activities by providing them with multiple opportunities for learning leadership skills and participating in civic engagement activities. Giving students multiple opportunities for engagement combined with individual attention from our staff ensures that students can choose to participate in program activities that are most meaningful to them, and are therefore those activities from which they will benefit most. What makes the SEF program different is the fact that young people take responsibility to develop themselves and their communities. Students are responsible for identifying community needs they want to address and then creating change strategies for addressing those needs. During the school year, students form what we call Campus Teams that meets regularly for discussions. The team also performs multiple service projects throughout the year. Service projects are designed by the students to address issues of their choosing. Thus, students evolve from service recipients to full participants in development activities within their communities. Many of these students do not participate in other extra-curricular activities, and almost none have had an opportunity for the type of formal leadership roles they can assume in this group. Our staff only supports them with advices about the areas they are interested in and linkages to resources that can support their desire for change. With a civic engagement focus, we would include exposure to people who will give additional support to make these student led activities to make it sustainable.
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