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Argyle deal makers reach out to Ghana

Editor's note: A previous version of the story incorrectly stated the event was open to the public. It is a closed event only open to Argyle students. A more peaceful world. A more just society.
argyle

Editor's note: A previous version of the story incorrectly stated the event was open to the public. It is a closed event only open to Argyle students.

 

A more peaceful world. A more just society.

To achieve those goals, one key change must be made, according to Huzeima Mahamadu.

“Women have to go to school,” she says, speaking from northern Ghana where she works as program officer for the charity Create Change.

To get more girls in the classroom, Argyle Secondary students are selling treats on June 5.

“It’s maybe not our community that we’re putting all the profits to, but it’s still a community,” notes Grade 11 Argyle student Ryan Russell, team leader of Lo-Chew, one of five teams set to hawk their wares in the year-end event.

“We’ve got to push because every dollar counts,” Russell notes.

Russell’s group is selling the candy Hi-Chew. And while he’s committed to helping Create Change, Russell doesn’t mind taking a few shots at his competition.

When asked about sports drinks and ice cream bars, Russell quickly issues a warning about the perils of brain freezes and warns sports drinks will be selling for a “luxury price.”

Teacher Jeanine Almeida notes that most products being sold have to be at least “somewhat healthy.”

Asked how the sugary Hi-Chew candies were approved by the school’s administration, Russell responds: “I’m surprised about that, too.”

While Russell and his team are still calculating price points and expenses, the marketing campaign looks to be in full swing. Russell is enthusiastic as he discusses utilizing social media, creating posters, colour co-ordinating the candies and tablecloths, as well as utilizing a team member who does the school’s morning announcements.

“We’re going to use that to our benefit,” he promises.    

“They’re trying to utilize all of the skills that they’ve learned through the year,” Almeida explains of the year-end project.

It’s a project Almeida spearheaded about 12 years ago, influenced by U.S. President Donald Trump’s old job as reality TV star on The Apprentice.

But while it’s about motivating classmates through competition and letting them have fun in the sunshine, Almeida is mindful of the global context of the event.

“Kids here really care about other kids in other countries,” she says. “They want to help those girls and provide education for them.”

. . .

When she was 18 years old, Mahamadu knew there was no way her parents could afford tuition. In fact, they were barely making enough for food, she recalls.

But she heard about an organization that helps “intelligent but poor young ladies” go to school.

After an interview and background check, Create Change funded Mahamadu’s education, allowing her to earn a bachelor of science degree in human settlement planning.

“I was so happy when they told me that they would pay my school fees because I felt like my dreams were shutting down,” she says. “They gave me back my dreams.”

University was crucial for Mahamadu, who explains that she knew she had the passion to do something, but also knew she didn’t have the skills.

“Whatever experience I needed with life, whatever knowledge I wanted to help my community, to help my society, I can get it at the university,” she remembers thinking.

Attending university, learning about a variety of subjects with a diverse group of professors and students was “one of the best things that has ever happened to me,” she says.

Once her schooling was over and her term of compulsory government service was complete, Mahamadu returned to her town of Tamale where she went to work for the charity that had changed her life.

“I love what Create Change is doing and I always have a passion to help young girls become better people than I am,” she says.

As program officer, much of Mahamadu’s work involves mentoring young girls, particularly children in rural communities who lack literacy skills.

While an event like the one at Argyle may appear small, Mahamadu suggests it’s bigger than it seems.

By supporting one girl, you’re also supporting her family, and in turn, the next generation, she says.

• • •

Mahamadu’s story is becoming increasingly typical, according to Create Change founder, executive director and former West Vancouver resident Shannen O’Brian.

In the last decade, the organization has helped about 1,400 girls and young women graduate high school. “But then afterwards, we try to give them that next opportunity,” she explains.

That next opportunity could be university education, training, or work for a social enterprise, she says.

“Our goal in Ghana is to have our student alumni run our organization 100 per cent,” she says. “We’re well on our way toward that goal.”

Create Change is often “one of the last stops” students make before dropping out of school, she says. But some years the line outside Create Change office is “hundreds of girls long.”

The shy girls who have never ventured their opinions in public get an opportunity to take on different roles and to see the world from a different perspective.

Around northern Ghana, O’Brian says she’s observed some girls cruising around on motorbikes, “which girls don’t traditionally do,” she adds.

It costs about $300 to send a girl in Ghana to school for a year, including school fees, food, and accommodation, as most girls from rural communities tend to go to boarding schools, O’Brian explains.

Create Change’s emphasis on education is largely about showing girls the options available to them, she says.

“You ask most girls what they want to do, it’s always a nurse or teacher because (those are) the only two careers they’re actually aware of,” she says.

To expose them to more careers, Create Change runs regular group discussions at high schools to allow girls to trade ideas, talk about family pressure, and exchange study tips.

Discussing the Argyle fundraiser, O’Brian notes the similarities between young people that bridge the 11,400-kilometre divide between North Vancouver and Ghana.

“These girls are really not that different (from) young women here and if we want to see change in the world it really is about empowering women to not only become educated but start standing (up) for themselves and what they believe in,” she says.

And while Argyle students are helping the students in Ghana, O’Brian says they’re also helping themselves.

“It definitely gives kids in our own community an opportunity to make a difference and feel that change and know what it feels like to change someone’s life,” she says. “When you give a young person that opportunity, it kind of shifts their whole trajectory.”

While there are many obstacles to overcome and misconceptions to surmount, Mahamadu is adamant that an educated woman has a certain power.

“When a women is educated … she will prove everyone wrong.”