Intern Introduction: Alison Crawford

Hello from Ghana! My name is Alison Crawford and I am one of Titagya’s two summer interns. I am a rising senior at Haverford College in Philadelphia, PA, where I am pursuing a major in English and a minor in Education. Outside of class I am a student-athlete, I work in the Admissions Office, and I am involved in a mentoring program for students in West Philadelphia. Through the education courses at Haverford I have worked at several Philadelphia area schools, and this experience has led me to particular interest in early childhood education and special education. It is in the pursuit of my interests in education that I found out about Titagya Schools.

I first heard of Titagya School in Professor Alice Lesnick’s class “Empowering Learners” in Spring 2009. The organization was mentioned to me a second time when I began working with Haverford’s Center for Peace and Global Citizenship with the aim to find a summer internship working with children in Africa. Haverford’s Center for Peace and Global Citizenship (called the CPGC) funds student volunteer projects internationally and domestically that address issues of social justice and relate to a student’s academic interests. They suggested that I get in touch with Andrew Garza (Haverford class of 2008), and after speaking with Andrew a few times on the phone I was very excited about the prospect of being one of Titagya’s summer interns!

After hearing from Andrew that Titagya would like to have me as an intern, I began the long but rewarding process of applying for CPGC funding. Haverford Professor of African and Africana Studies, Professor Ruti Talmor, aided me greatly in independent study of Ghana, and provided me with both essential academic and practical knowledge garnered from her research experience in Ghana.

I was ecstatic to hear the news that I received funding, and the real planning for the trip began. Despite all of the work I was doing to prepare for my departure, the concept that I would be spending 10 weeks at Titagya School was too surreal for me to conceive of fully, and I had the feeling that the reality would not hit me until I set foot in Ghana.

Arrived in Ghana

I just arrived in Ghana for a month-long trip. It was great to touch down at the airport, and Ghana has come to feel like a third home, after the US and parts of Mexico. My first day included stopping by BusyInternet, an internet cafe, to let family know I arrived safely, exhanging money, finalizing logistics with Fatawu about travelling to Dalun on Sunday, meeting a potential donor, seeing a friend, and having one of my favorite dinners: mushroom and spicy pepper stew with Star beer.

On Sunday I'll be travelling North with Yaw, a member of our Board of Advisors. I've been eagerly awaiting this month and look forward to sitting in on classes at our school, working with our staff, interns, and advisors to enhance our curriculum, meeting with government officials about our partnership and its vision for early education and interactive education, visiting potential sites for future schools, and helping to establish fundraising operations in Ghana. It will be a busy month, but one of the good things about finite visits is that they add an extra sense of urgency for staff to work effectively and quickly to get a lot of things done by the end.

Much more to come soon, including posts about our interns' work and experiences within the next week.

Inspiration From My Abuelito

From talking with remarkable individuals who have started other organizations, I've noticed that people often have more than one motivation for starting organizations. This observation may seem intuitive, since humans are multi-dimensional creatures that can be driven by several ambitions at the same time and since starting an organization is a huge, personal decision. However, for lack of space and other reasons, you might not always find out about all of these key underlying drivers just by visiting an organization's website or seeing a PowerPoint about it.

In our case, I know that Fatawu's motivations include an ambition to create positive change in his community and to "pay it forward" by giving young people in northern Ghana even more chances to succeed educationally than he's had. At some point, Fatawu may talk more about his sources of inspiration in his own words on here.

I share with Fatawu the vision of many more early educational facilities throughout northern Ghana, improved overall quality of early and primary education, and better access to school for economically-poor children. Working towards accomplishing these goals every day is part of what gets me up in the morning. And, like Fatawu, I recognize the incredible family and community support networks that helped me succeed academically, including attending high school in Switzerland and a top liberal arts college in the US. And I, too, want to pay that foward.

In addition, I draw inspiration from various family members who have worked hard to support other family members and contribute something to great people who happen to have less financial or political resources than them. My grandfather (Abuelito in Spanish), Juanleandro Garza, in particular, is one such person for me. Although a large portion of my family on my dad's side are from Monterrey, Mexico, the business capital of the country, my abuelito moved his nuclear family to a much poorer part of the country to start and become the principal of a school. Children at the school excelled, and he worked there for many years. As a retiree, he offered bilingual counseling and a friendly face to Mexican immigrants and others in a San Diego hospital. Two of the lessons I draw from the way he has lived his life are: 1) that we should seek opportunities to empower others, especially in such long-lasting ways as high-quality education and 2) we should view people - regardless of geographic background, color, etc. - with the respect and desire to serve - in an unpatronizing way - befitting our common humanity, and act accordingly.

Unfortunately, my abuelito has fallen ill with a terminal condition and may not be with us much longer. However, even though I am deeply sad about that, I'm simultaneously grateful that his legacy will live on through lessons that he has taught to others. I think Nelson Mandela's quote about inspiring others through your light applies here in spades. Thank you, Abuelito.

Q2 Discussion

Hi Everyone,

We'll be having a get together for all of our supporters, volunteers, and well-wishers in the NYC area this Friday. It will be a great chance to update you in-person on our latest progress and to brainstorm together about our 'launch' fundraiser in October and other issues.

We'll meet at 6:30 pm at Pizzeria Uno, on 86th St. between 2nd and 3rd Ave. in Manhattan. I hope to see you there!

NJ Fundraiser on Thursday

Hi Everyone,

The Kiwanis Club of Sparta, NJ will be hosting a fundraiser for us this Thursday, April 29th at 7 pm at the Lafayette House restaurant in Lafayette, NJ (Located on Route 94). The event will feature a five-course meal and wine pairings with the courses. A local wine expert will make suggestions on which wines to pair with various meals. Attendees will also have the chance to purchase cases of wine they like at a reduced price. The suggested donation is $60.


We'd love to see you there if you're free Thursday evening! Thank you so much to the Kiwanis Club of Sparta for organizing the event and to Burke's Liquors for providing the wine!

Bryn Mawr / Haverford Visit

Happy Easter and happy belated Passover!

I recently visited Bryn Mawr and Haverford College, where I attended college. One of the most innovative aspects of our work is our close partnership with the Bryn Mawr / Haverford Education Program, and I went to meet with Dr. Alice Lesnick's Empowering Learners class. The class incorporates an experiential component, and as part of this aspect of it, five students with experience in another early education classroom are partnering with Titagya this semester.

The group has been researching ways that we can further improve our curriculum. They're doing this by writing two two-week long sample lesson plans for us, from which we will incorporate especially promising elements into our actual lessons. When the sample lesson plans are complete at the end of the semester, the group will post them here: http://titagya.blogs.brynmawr.edu/curriculum-modules - A big thank you to Maggie Powers for setting up the blog for this partnership!

I also met with representatives of two student groups at Bryn Mawr that are financially supporting us, IMPACT! and Project Educate in Africa. I updated them on our activities and we talked about fundraising events in the future.

In addition, we recently found out that the two interns we selected to come to Ghana this summer both received funding from their respective schools, Haverford and Davidson. Our intern from Haverford, Alison will also be developing two sample lesson plans as research preparation for her time in Ghana. Luckily, she will be able to correspond a fair amount with the Bryn Mawr class and Alice Lesnick as she works on this. You will hear more from her and our other Ghana intern, Chris when they blog over the summer.

Lastly, I invited Alice Lesnick to join our Board of Advisors, in recognition of her depth of experience in and knowledge of early education and her great advice to us. We were very pleased that she accepted. I get butterflys before asking someone to join our team in some way. We have an amazing team, including people in formal and informal roles, and we'll tell you more about them in updates coming soon to our website.

Thank you also to Nene, Gail, and Chelsea for very helpful recent comments about our blog and site!

NYU Event Monday: "African Development: Whose Ownership?"

On Monday, March 29th, I'll be speaking on a panel at NYU covering the subject of "African Development: Whose Ownership?" We'll be discussing the roles of major stakeholders, such as governments, international financial institutions, businesses, NGOs, and the African Diaspora in development efforts in sub-Saharan Africa.

From Titagya's perspective, creating partnerships between communities in Ghana, the Government of Ghana, and outside volunteers, supporters, and experts has been a key aspect of our model. In addition, one of the unanticipated, very positive aspects of our work has been the growing involvement of Ghanaians living or studying in the US and Ghanaian-Americans in our projects. Several of our most important volunteers come from Ghana and are now living temporarily or permanently in the US.

The backing we have received from members of these communities in some ways reminds me of targeted remittances from Mexicans and Central Americans living in the US to projects in their home countries. However, a distinction between much of these aid flows and our work is that many of our Ghanaian and Ghanaian-American supporters come from southern Ghana, and thus are helping a region (the North) other than their home region. The above-mentioned aid flows to Latin America are generally organized by people from a particular town or village and then directed to that municipality.

Coming back to the talk, it will also include former ambassadors from Zambia and Rwanda and an expert on the legal aspects of investment in Africa. With these diverse perspectives, it should be a great discussion. Please join us if you will be in New York and are available on Monday from 6 pm - 8 pm. More details in the link below..

http://wagner.nyu.edu/events/wsafa-03-29-2010