Campus Happenings: 2018 Edition
2018 was a pretty great year for the Seeds of Africa students and visitors. From field trips to cooking classes, here are our favorite happening highlights from the year.
Trip to Edna Mall
In early 2018, our students took a trip to the Edna Mall in Addis Ababa. Smiling cheek-to-cheek, our giddy students rode the canary-colored merry-go-round, and climbed a massive indoor playground. This was a great opportunity for our students to get out into the world and just be kids.
Seeds of Africa Girls Club
One of our biggest initiatives at Seeds of Africa is to encourage our female students to chase their dreams and realize their worth. We were thrilled to see that a group of inspired young ladies came together and formed the very first Seeds of Africa Girls Club. On a visit earlier in the year, Atti Worku sat down with the club to hear their goals, and answer their burning questions about education, owning a business and growing up.
Cordaid Comes to Town
We were thrilled to meet the head of Cordaid Ethiopia, Akinyi Walender. Her and her team joined us on a loan recipient tour where they baked fresh injera, visited metal workers and met the faces behind the businesses. Learn more about Akinyi in this awesome interview we conducted.
The Kitchen of Our Dreams
With the help of board members Stephanie Bond and Devin Benton, we are gearing up to launch the Seeds of Africa Lunch Program. Nutrition dictates an individual’s ability to learn, and this power couple spent the year raising money to help us ensure each of our students gets a nutritious meal daily. If we’re going to feed our students, of course we need a kitchen! What better place to look for an artisan to build it than one of our loan recipients? We can’t wait to show progress updates once the kitchen is built in 2019.
Final Projects
Seeds of Africa implements project-based learning into many aspects of our curriculum. We love seeing how hands-on work inspires our students to let their imagination run wild and manifest their creativity. Our upper-level students were tasked with creating final projects that solved a problem they saw on campus. From contraptions that cleaned up chalk dust, to fashion made out of recyclable materials, we were amazed to see how our students faced the challenge head on and came up with inventions that truly exemplified their creativity.
The Ministry of Education
During 2018, we were visited by the Ministry of Education. They were so excited by what we do, they invited our Country Director, Bereket, to present our work in front of hundreds of other NGO’s. We can’t wait to see where this partnership takes us in 2019.
State Bags
A huge shout out to State Bags is in order! In 2018, they loaded our students up with backpacks and loot that they could use at school and home. For those of you that don’t know, for every State Bag purchased, the company donates fully-stocked backpacks to children in need. They also fund special projects with partner charities through their #WhatDoWeTellKids platform.
Summer Program Fun
From food to science, every week in July was dedicated towards a different unit that taught our students real life skills. We painted murals throughout the school, created inventions with our science department, learned to cook and held a soccer tournament. Besides seeing the joy on our student’s faces, the best part of this month was hosting a variety of visitors from our work in the U.S.A. Check out these heartfelt testimonials from their trip.
Sista Soccer
Last but certainly not least, our students were visited by the awesome organization Sista Soccer. Our athletes were loaded with shin guards, uniforms, balls, cleats and more. We can’t wait to see how their game improves in 2019 now that they have the proper gear.