31 Jan

The Future Awards Africa Prize for Education (Ghana)

Tom Chris

Tom-Chris was burdened by the growing youth unemployment which could be attributed to the fact that many youths are not prepared with necessary skills for surviving in the real world. This led to the development of a campus organization called Stars from All Nations (SFAN) with the aim to help young people transition from college to career and to raise the next generation of African leaders. Through this organization, Tom-Chris has pioneered three major projects: SFAN COLLEGE BOWL; a weekly training program for providing what he called the “alternative education” to students at Radford university college (in the form of CV writing and Interview Preparatory sessions, Self-Pitch development, etc.), Quantum Leap Career Fair (#QLCF) and Future Executives Business Breakfast Meeting (#FEBBM)

Through SFAN, Tom-Chris has helped at least 1500 people (youth mostly) access trainings and opportunities in different forms.

 

Divine Komla Kpe

Divine is one of Africa’s young change leaders with passion for quality education. He is the Founder and Director of Every Child Along, a community-centered organization that seeks to improve literacy in rural communities of Ghana and as well the CEO of BusiWrite, a business writing organization.

Every Child Along (ECA) seeks to improve literacy in rural areas of Ghana through community teaching for children whose performance trails their peers. ECA also seeks to promote children’s enrolment and retention in school. For his commitment toward improving education in Ghana, he has received a number of local and international honours. Divine was awarded Educom Award in 2017 as Education Support Worker and came as the 1st Runner-Up for the Inspirational Teacher Awards.

 

Josephine Marie Godwyll

Josephine Marie Godwyll believes in inculcating the interest in technology in young Africans right at
their formative stage. Driven by the passion of volunteerism and innovative technology, she is the
founder and coordinator of Young At Heart Ghana.

Her team has spearheaded a total of 12 technology outreaches organized to targeted rural areas in the Ashanti, Eastern and Greater Accra Regions in Ghana. The Technology outreaches have impacted over a thousand school children in rural schools and have made a huge difference as over 90% of the school children before the outreach, had never personally interacted with computers.

Godwyll seeks to champion the extension of technology outreaches to other African villages and she dreams of an Africa driven by technical innovators. Her efforts have been recognized by The Ghana
Institute of Engineers (GHIE) and Tigo/Reach for Change Ghana who have awarded her the awards in the categories of Excellence in Engineering and People’s Choice Awards for Digital Change Makers
respectively.

She is also the founder an innovative group called “Team JESKI” a team that creates useful technologically inclined products aimed at solving problems which everyday people face. Projects worked on include an Emergency Response Information System (ERIS) for hostels on University
campuses.

 

Sylvanus Bedzrah

The problem of reading has been an issue of concern to many people in Ghana and Africa.  Over the years, this problem has been attributed to the poor academic performance of students, since research has proven that there is a very great correlation between habitual reading academic excellence.

In finding solution to this, Mr. Sylvanus Bedzrah has taken up the project to promote reading in Ghana as a way of contributing to the SDG 4 (Quality Education). This, he began doing through the media where he once hosted a 2-hour weekly radio show that discussed books and READING. This programme, which lasted for over a year, has a listening audience of thousands of Ghanaians. Sylvanus also uses TV and Radio stations to speak on the importance of reading. He also uses social media to preach the message of the READING with #MakingGhanaAReadingNation hash tag.

Aside that, Sylvanus constantly advocates about the importance of reading among secondary school students.  Sylvanus has been involved in making book donations to community libraries and school, and has over the years partnered some NGOs and philanthropists who make book donations. Sylvanus Bedzrah intends to, in the future, raise funds to build community libraries and library for less endowed schools in the country.

 

Freda Nyame

Freda is the Executive Director at Inspiring Young Achievers Network (IYAN) Africa. IYAN is a Non-Governmental Organization formally launched in November 2014. It seeks to, nurture and transform the youth of Africa with relevant support and empowerment to achieve their goals, through key strategies such as mentorship programs, provision of educational materials and infrastructure, self-development workshops and networking opportunities.

Freda has always believed and loved to make an impact on society; this underpins her Organization’s vision, which is, “To be the top notch youth oriented foundation in Africa to bridge the educational gap between the youth from well-served communities and those from underserved Communities.” Their mission is to help the youth discover their potentials, Inspire and support them, to become great leaders who would also follow the pattern of societal transformation.

Freda volunteers to teach children around the world; She volunteered to teach young children English and the Ghanaian Culture in Russia under one of AIESEC Ghana’s volunteering programs.