April 3, 2017
TFFT’s Full Circle Program introduced a Leadership and Entrepreneurship Club in our partner schools as an initiative to teach practical knowledge outside of the classroom. We meet after school and club activities help exercise critical and analytical thinking. We want to empower our scholars to use their talents and achieve their dreams through creative, innovative ideas. We aim to set our scholars up for success after school, so that they may sustain themselves economically, contribute to society, and maintain personal career growth.
At Usa River Academy, the Leadership and Entrepreneurship Club was launched in February. What an ecstatic group of scholars we had! In total, there were 49 scholars present from forms 1 and 3. We had a small group of scholars from form 2 sit in on the club meeting. They will be able to officially join next year as form 3 scholars, due to exam schedules. Key components of the club meetings are practical courses on leadership, entrepreneurship, peer mentoring, and business projects.
We have now completed four club meetings at Usa River Academy. The attendees are vocal about what runs through their minds and they communicate fears concerning entrepreneurship and employment opportunities after education, and we work to center club meetings on how to approach this.
During our most recent club meeting, we discussed leadership. The scholars held a vibrant discussion on whether leaders are born or made. We talked about the potential for leadership on various levels from school government to national leaders. Scholars discussed role model leaders, and the ones that they think are wrongly placed in position!! Previous sessions have included small group discussions and games. We meet on Friday afternoons at Usa River Academy, so we have put in extra effort to make each club meeting active and practical to maintain students’ concentration and participation.
It is interesting to see how our scholars think outside the box, challenge one another, and then to come to a consensus. They are quite an impressive group, and it is great to see how openminded the scholars have been during club meetings.
One of the club members has already approached us and shared a book she has been writing, entitled How to Overcome Poverty. She hopes to eventually publish it and earn an income through her writing. We are thrilled with her enthusiasm and interest in entrepreneurship, and we congratulated her for her efforts and initiative to put her talent to work. As club meetings continue, she will learn more about approaches towards entrepreneurship and aspects from other components that will be useful to her. We look forward to future club meetings and to the progress that we see in our scholars’ growth as leaders!
