Future of Africa

Our Month So Far
Hey FOA Fam!
Quick update!

It's a new month (Happy New Month!🥳) and we have so much to share with you!

Street outreach has been going on as planned. We've realised, though, that the youth at Opeibea are more interested in sports. So, we have been organising football matches with them.

The main aim is to strengthen our relationship with them as well as identify talents amongst them and nurture them. For the street residents at Kantamanto, they are increasing in number, with most of them being very committed to our programs.

The only downside of street outreach is that for the past few weeks, we have not had a lot of volunteers joining us on the streets. This is because, most of our volunteers are university students and were in their examination period.

At long last, we have finished planning how to recruit our next cohort. So, we are now working towards implementing the plans and structures we've put in place.

In class, for Numeracy, Elom covered operations with Innocent. He taught him addition, subtraction, and multiplication. He also covered mixed operations, which is a combination of the aforementioned in a problem set.

For literacy, he completed Nouns and Pronouns with him. As we all know, Elom doesn't complete a course without giving out an assessment. Amazingly, Innocent was prepared for him, as he got 18/20 on the assessment.

Next week, they would be covering articles and prepositions

Finally, on Tuesday, TK travelled to Canada for his fundraising trip. We wish him well for this trip and trust that it will be a great opportunity to connect with new partners, sharing our work with them, while updating old partners on what we've achieved so far.

These past few weeks have been fantastic! Are you touched or inspired? We are open to have visitors come check out our space and learn more about what we do.

Wear your masks and let's hang out outdoors at Norviwo! Check out our bio if you need further information! The Future of Africa starts here and now! Let's build together!

He's strong. He's driven. He's humorous. The list goes on and on with Innocent. And oh, the tales we can tell about Innocent? Unending.

Innocent was one of the first people we met in the streets and quickly became one of our most dedicated street residents, attending every outreach meeting whiles organising the other residents to come and participate as well.

As our influence in the streets grew and "transition off the streets" plans progressed, we took Innocent, and a few other guys, to the Airport Basic School to start schooling. After we got our community centre, Innocent joined us as a member of the first cohort, after spending about 8 years on the streets.

Innocent was very committed to our programs and was the life of every activity. Unfortunately, he confessed that it was hard for him to stay in an "organised" environment, attributing it to spiritual reasons.

We still kept in touch with him, though, and he remained our go-to resource for coordinating the street residents for programs and medical check ups.

Amazingly, he's back.

It was tough seeing Innocent remain in the streets because of his immense potential- demonstrated primarily through his wit and leadership skills.

We started involving him in some of our major programs this year, and after listening to the testimonies of the Scholars and the plans we have in place from Ben, Innocent expressed his desire re-enroll into our program.

Innocent's story is a remarkable one. First, it reinforces our return statistic, where 100% of those who leave our program always return for a second chance, and second, it gives us a beautiful opportunity to understand what makes our residents leave, along with what triggers them to return, stay, and commit fully to our program.

We are glad to have Innocent back with us and can't wait to see his leaps of progress through the pathways ahead of him! Midzo!

Happy Thursday Everybody!

Today, we want to throw it back to May, last year, when we redesigned the dance studio (again) into a workshop, in order to help Rescue and Becky fine-tune the skills that they gained from their training institutes.

Today, Becky and Rescue are doing internships in their respective fields, here in Accra, and are progressing very well in their Mialike stage. We will bring you updates about that soon. Until then, enjoy this throwback!🥳

Hey Fam!

Today, for our series about street life, we want to talk about an uncomfortable, but necessary conversation- sex in the streets. When you visit the streets for some time and engage the residents there, you would quickly discover that they are addicted to many things: gambling, alcohol, drugs, and today's topic- sex.

We have come to realize that a lot of these addictions stem out of an abuse-filled childhood. These kids suffer so much physical, emotional, mental, and even sexual abuse while at home. So, what happens is that when they finally get to the streets, they mask that abuse with sex, amongst other activities.

It becomes their coping mechanism. And the danger in that is that sex is dangerous, outside of the environment it was made for, and can be very addictive, and destructive, once you start, especially at a young age.

Unfortunately, a lot of these very very young residents are sexually active, and this leads to teenage pregnancies, sexually transmitted infections, and in extreme cases, prostitution
It's a large problem that we find ourselves dealing with and requires a lot of work to fix.

Of course, we try our best to organize sessions, through Midzo, to sensitize the residents about the dangers of STIs and prevention methods, bringing expert advice from the Ghana Aids Commission, amongst other resources to help us with our sensitization.

However, what we believe is that it goes further than that. To deal with this sexual issue, we have to deal with the trauma and abuse that these activities come out from. With the structures we have in place and the resources currently at our disposal, we are only able to effectively tackle this in our Miahaya stage, once a cohort is enrolled into our Norviwo Program.

It's a big problem and a long journey, but we know, definitely, that the solution is on the horizon, and we will get there soon. What are your thoughts about this though? Why do you think there's so much sexual activity in the streets? What do you think can be done to help? Share your thoughts with us!

Sunday Reflections

An encounter with one will change your perception of all. Street residents are not unapproachable. They are ready to be heard. One of the things that make Midzo so fun is the conversations we're able to have with these guys. Set a goal to speak to just one before the half-year ends.

If you need some company you can join us for our street outreaches Saturday and Sunday evenings. Feel free to reach out to us via direct message if you need any extra info. Let's start engaging more.

Our Month So Far
Hey FOA Fam!
Quick update!

All too soon, May is nearing its end and we have so many updates for you!

Since our recent graduation for Kelvin from Miahaya to Miasrornu, we've been preparing heavily for the next cohort for our Miahaya Program. As part of the preparations, we have designed a rubric for graduating from Midzo to Miahaya and from Miahaya to Miasrornu.

We hope that the standardization of this process will enhance our training procedures, by preparing individuals who have been equipped, holistically, to take the next step.

This past Sunday, the newly-graduated Ashesi seniors came out in their numbers for our street outreach program in Kanta to serve and interact with the street residents there. It was a great time for them as they were able to finally volunteer for street outreach once again after a trying semester!

In the classroom, Elom taught Nouns & Pronouns for Literacy and did some Introduction to Numbers for Numeracy. Knowing Elom, there's definitely a class test in the pipeline.

On the management side, TK has been meeting with other streetism-related organisations to design a Strategic Plan geared towards eradicating streetism. Being able to collaborate with like-minded organisations has been really encouraging and we are positive that this partnership will drive this goal very quickly!

These past few weeks have been great! Are you touched or inspired? We are open to have visitors come check out our space and learn more about what we do.

Wear your masks and let's hang out outdoors at Norviwo! Check out our bio if you need further information! The Future of Africa starts here and now! Let's build together!