Background

Throughout my education, there have been many times where I was sent home or not allowed to write an exam because I owed school fees.  Onetime, I was actually sacked from an exam room because I owed the equivalent of $10 today.  It does not sound like much but at the time, I did not have it and so i was asked to leave the exam room.  This story is not unique to me. There are hundreds and thousands of students who have at one point gone through such an ordeal or are currently going through this.  While attending college in the US, through a scholarship, I was always grateful that I had the scholarship because there was no way my parents could have afforded >$60k/yr with their meagre Ghanaian income. 

One thing that struck me was how much tuition in Ghana was significantly lower than the US.   It costs about $450/yr to cover the tuition, room and board for a public university student in Ghana.  Realizing that i could afford this even with my campus job, i was able to sponsor a few students in Ghana.  I am not the only one: I realized that my friends were also doing the same.  It is so powerful to see people helping out others in their community.  This was one of my biggest motivations in starting this non-profit.  We can all continue to give to the educational needs of others in communities we care about and get the appropriate tax benefits that comes with it.

Last year

Last year, we were able to sponsor 3 students: Charity Afrifa, Nana Akua Agyemang and Rabiatu Malik.  After reviewing their transcripts from the time we introduced the scholarships, we could clearly see the drastic improvements in their grades as the financial burden was lifted of them. One student jumped from averaging C's to being a straight A student.  It makes me wonder, how many other students are seeing really low grades as a result of financial burdens?

Our Goal for 2021

This year, we are setting up this fund to target university students in Ghana with severe financial need and constraints.  We hope to partner with you to be able to sponsor at least 25 students this year.  With this, we hope to cover the cost of their tuition, room and board for a full year.  We are not setting up this scholarship for only the "Brilliant but needy" students.  More often than not, it is only the so-called smart students who get to benefit from scholarships or people in STEM.  We design our scholarships for all students, brilliant or not.  As long as the student is in good academic standing, we will consider them.  Our main criteria is the financial need.

Introducing Named Scholarships

Anyone can donate any amount to our general scholarship fund.  However, we would also like to partner with individuals who would like to setup a standalone scholarship fund named after anyone of their choice.  In this arrangement, you would be required to donate enough  (usually > $450) per year which would be enough to fund a student at the university for a while year.  With this, the donor can choose who the scholarship should go to or set any criteria of their choice that the organization can agree with.  For example, some donors may want to donate to only women.  If you are interested in such an arrangement, please donate here and then leave a comment in the notes or email us at scholarships@communitylearninginitiative.org