"I Want To Be" Program

Pubblicata su Global Junior Challenge (http://2017.gjc.it)

Paese, Città/Regione

Paese:

Ghana

Città:

Takoradi

Organizzazione

Nome dell'ente o associazione:

To Be Worldwide

Contesto dell'ente o dell'associazione che presenta il progetto:

Other

Specify:

Non-Government Organization

Sito Web

www.tobeworldwide.org

Legge sulla privacy

Consenso al trattamento dei dati personali

Acconsenti al trattamento dei dati personali?:

Autorizzo la FMD al trattamento dei miei dati personali.

Tipo di progetto

Educazione fino ai 15 anni

Descrizione del progetto

Description Frase (max. 500 characters):

The “I Want To Be Program opens the minds of children and their families to what they can become in their communities. It leads the kids on a journey of self-discovery using interviews with local professionals, teamwork and field trips to companies. The program is a combination of a computer application, homework assignments and field visits.

Project Summary (max. 2000 characters):

To Be Worldwide, founded in 2002 by Nellie Kirschner-Timmer (Ghanaian/Dutch), developed the concept of an Educational Resource Centers (ERC) to help children ages 6-15 of predominately from public schools were facilities are lacking, realize their full potential. The Centres include a computer lab with 40 computers, a children’s library and lessons programs. Over 12000 children have enrolled at our Centres. We cooperate closely with the Ghana Education Services, providing computer lessons to local schools during school hours as well. To Be Worldwide is registered in Ghana and the Netherlands, with a full board in each country. She has won the Global Junior Award in 2009 for her work.

Helping children realize their full potential for a better future includes helping them understand their talents and how to develop these. And most important “why” they need to be developed and what opportunities this can lead to.

An expanding middle class and recent oil finds off the coast introduce a host of new career opportunities. Children in Ghana, however, have a narrow and often unrealistic view of career options. When researching kids’ ambitions, 95% of children told us they wanted to be a ‘doctor’ or ‘lawyer’. It is also uncommon for children to voice their own opinions in Ghana, given the large role family and church play in their lives. Children base their ambitions on what their environment thinks will bring them status and wealth. As a result, with no understanding of the possibilities and with immediate financial needs pressing, most children forgo higher education. They leave school at age 16 to take a low paying job and help out with the family’s finances.

Compounding this issue is the fact that Ghana’s schools offer limited career counseling. Children choose orientation courses in Junior High School without much awareness on how this relates to careers. Many teachers don’t know the steps towards a certain career either. Children generally pick the same courses their friends have selected.

To help children and their parents explore more realistic career goals and understand paths to achieve them, To Be Worldwide developed the “I Want To Be” Program. View a short demo of the application here http://www.cnote.nl/tobe/demo/demo.html [1] . (Demo mentions a 2 month period. With all learnings it is now run in 3 weeks consecutively).

Da quando è funzionante il vostro progetto?

2015-04-01 00:00:00

Obiettivi ed elementi di innovazione

The ‘I Want To Be’ Program and computer application aims to open the minds of children and their families to what they can become in their communities, and encourage them to stay in school longer. The program leads the kids on a journey of self-discovery using interviews with local professionals, teamwork and field trips to companies.

Children are selected to participate in this program by the Ghana Education Services in cooperation with the To Be Worldwide Team. This allows us to put together a group of children from members of the Education Centre and children from local public schools.

A typical “I Want To Be” Program is run over a period of 3 weeks with sessions of 4 hours a day. Homework assignments are also part of the program. 40 children are offered the opportunity to participate. A carefully selected team, including members of the Ghana Education Services, is responsible for running the program. The parents of the children are also involved at different stages during the program, to ensure their commitment to the changes and ideas their children may want and have. Children and their parents are invited to an introductory session, where the goals of the program are explained and the expectations from all parties are discussed. On 2 occasion groups of children will visit companies to learn about their operations and they also visit Professionals to interview them and learn about their jobs. On return to the Centre, the groups prepare their presentation for their fellow students and their parents who are then invited.

The children learn what the career opportunities are in their communities, while improving their writing, presentation and computer skills. At the end of the course, they are able to voice their own desires and ideas about their future.

View a short demo of the application here http://www.cnote.nl/tobe/demo/demo.html [1] (Demo mentions a 2 month period. With all learnings it is now run in 3 weeks consecutively).

Risultati

Describe the results achieved by your project How do you measure (parameters) these. (max. 2000 characters):

The “I Want To Be” Program can be referred to as a multi-skills development program. While its objective is to open the minds of children (and their parents) to realistic future career opportunities in their community, it helps develop a wide range of skills: - Basic ICT Skills, MS Office, working with powerpoint, doing research on the internet. - Teamwork and the various roles. - Building confidence - Speaking in public - Engaging with your peers - Verbal skills such as Formulating your opinion Please see some of the comments made by parents: "The program has helped my child very well. It has changed the way Florence use to tackle things. She used to be shy but now she can bold ask questions. I’m really grateful for the program she took part in. recently I pay her school a visit and the report I had from her teacher was good. I was told how fluent my daughter is with the English language and also her academic performance is also improving gradually. I sincerely thank TOBE and it staff for helping my daughter. By Mr. John Ato Essien (Florence Essien)" "Kwabena’s attitude has improved after his participation in the I WANT TO BE program held at the centre. My son has surpassed his colleagues in ICT lesson due the research skills he acquired at the program. His general subjects treated at school also shown remarkable improvement. Thanks to the program, my son is now counted among the best students at school. By Naomi Insaido (K B Sarpong-Insaido)" To measure the outcome of our program we engage with all the stakeholders and those who benefit from our programs. When it involves children participating in the different programs we stimulate dialogue and opportunities to share experiences which we can use to measure outcome. For each program, we will develop an official evaluation method, personal interviews, written survey’s etc. By working closely with the Ghana Education Services in our area and the school children who participate in the various programs at our Centre, we gain insight into relevant data, such as report cards that could indicate improvement in their performance at school

How many users interact with your project monthly and what are the preferred forms of interaction? (max. 500 characters):

The ERC where the “I Want To Be” program is run, has 1000 individual new enrolments annually, plus 7 schools with a class of approx. 45 children each (total 315 weekly) that follow ICT courses. The “I Want To Be” Program caters to 40 children annually (permitted by budget). Weekly we welcome over 500 children. We have not measured what the interaction is on a monthly basis.

Children visit the Centre to read and borrow books, follow reading classes, work with educational material, take ICT classes and use the e-learning material. They can also take part in creative activities such as drawing.

Sostenibilità

What is the full duration of your project (from beginning to end)?:

Da 1 a 3 anni

What is the approximate total budget for your project (in Euro)?:

Meno di 10.000 Euro

What is the source of funding for your project?:

Finanziamenti pubblici o privati

Note eventuali:

To run an " I Want To Be" Program for 40 children over a period of 3 weeks is € 3500 per session.

Il progetto è economicamente autosufficiente?:

Trasferibilità

Has your project been replicated/adapted elsewhere?:

Where? By whom?:

Our project has not been replicated by others yet, however we do hope to be in a position soon to share with others

What lessons can others learn from your project? (max. 1500 characters):

We have learnt that the “I Want To Be” Program brings out an incredible change in the children participating. There is such a clear tangible development of the various skills addressed by the program when children are evaluated at the end of the 3-week program.

We feel that we could help others realise that you can develop educational programs for children that are layered in skill development, effective and very important, a lot of fun for the children participating.

To make such programs effective they really need to be embraced by all stakeholders (min. of Education, Schools, parents etc.) Such a process takes time and patience, particularly because a sense of ownership needs to be developed. Working closely with ministries of Education is essential to achieve such a success.

By documenting most of our programs at the Educational Resource Centre, including the “I Want To Be” Program, we believe we can make it easier to share our learnings with interested partner organizations in the future. Sharing could e.g. include access to the teaching manuals and on the job training at our Centre to experience the program.

Are you available to help others to start or work on similar projects?:

Sì

Informazioni aggiuntive

Barriers and Solutions (max. 1000 characters):

Since we have been active in the communities in Takoradi we have faced issues that have put a child’s right to learn and develop at risk. These often-involved decisions parents made by choosing not to permit their children to part-take in activities at the centre in favour of sending them to the market to sell items or to help around the house with younger siblings. In such cases, we invited parents to discuss the issues, point out the benefits of the programs, work to find a suitable time schedule and with the support of the counsellor of the Ghana Education Services (GES) and head-teachers of the schools, we are often successful. However, every new government election brings changes to our relationship with the Ghana Education Services. It then requiring us to go back and re-establish those relations. Our ability to expand our programs and service within the communities in a timely manner depends on how successful we are in building such a relationship.

Future plans and wish list (max. 750 characters):

The computer application of the “I Want To Be” Program was developed in 2012 -2013. We then took 2 years to test the program and run the individual modules with groups of children for input so that we could make improvements as we went along. Now, in 2017, with the new possibilities in software development and sufficient input and learnings over the years, we realise that the application needs to be redesigned. We also feel that redesigning the application will allow us to develop one that will be easier to share as it will be able to run on different platforms. We could also create a “white label” that will allow other organisation to customize it to their needs. For this we would require funding and a suitable software developer to help us realise this objective

Allegati:

A short discription and fotos of the "I Want To Be" Program [2]

Comments by Parents on the outcome experienced of the program [3]

Newsletter on our activities incl. I Want To Be [4]

Newsletter on our activities incl. I Want To Be [5]

ICT Education and Career Orientation [6]

URL di origine: http://2017.gjc.it/it/progetti/i-want-be-program

Collegamenti
[1] http://www.cnote.nl/tobe/demo/demo.html
[2] http://2017.gjc.it/sites/default/files/i_want_to_be_report.pdf
[3] http://2017.gjc.it/sites/default/files/iwtb_outcome_parents.doc
[4] http://2017.gjc.it/sites/default/files/newsletter_julydec2016.pdf
[5] http://2017.gjc.it/sites/default/files/newsletterjanjune2016.pdf
[6] http://2017.gjc.it/it/keywords-separate-commas/ict-education-and-career-orientation