EduSpots

Celebrating Our September Catalyst of the Month: Ebenezer Essieny Yeboah!! 🏆🏆 We are delighted to announce Ebenezer Essieny Yeboah as the Catalyst of the Month for September 🏅🏅. Ebenezer happens to also be the remarkable Spot Lead at Gomoa Manso Spot. Under Ebenezer’s leadership, Gomoa Manso Spot has achieved significant milestones. His accomplishments reflect his dedication and perseverance as a Catalyst! Read on to learn about Ebenezer, via this link: https://lnkd.in/dmaaV7XT Thank you, Ebenezer, for your unwavering commitment and for being a shining example! ✨️ ✨️ ✨️ #eduspots #congratulations #achieveyourgoals #achievements #citizenship #ourcollectivefuture

The EduSpots Blooming Buds 🌿 challenge aimed to help learners understand plant parts🪴, growth, and develop a connection with nature🥗 through hands-on activities. In this practical science experiment, the learners at Agbledomi Spot worked together to troubleshoot the causes of poor plant growth, testing for issues like lack of sunlight, over/underwatering, and nutrient deficiencies. By carefully observing their plants and adjusting their care, learners gained valuable insights into meeting a plant's needs - a lesson they're excited to apply as they continue nurturing their budding greenery.🌾🌵🌿 Keep up with EduSpots' work while learning about international development, education, and ethics in our WhatsApp community of like minds. Join the community via this link: https://lnkd.in/dPmQtTeY #eduspots #community #science #experiment #learn #explore #ourcollectivefuture

For our ongoing Green Spot Innovation Challenge, Spot teams are to identify a local environment challenge and create a solution to address this challenge. Ho-Kpenoe Spot team came together to brainstorm and are developing a solution aimed at raising awareness and educating the public about the devastating consequences of bush burning on our local farmers. The winning ideas for this innovation challenge will receive grant funding to further roll out their solution. Watch out for innovative ideas coming from our Spot communities. #eduspots #innovation #greencommunity #sustainableliving #ourcollectivefuture

We are still receiving applications for these staff roles: - EcoSTEM Coordinator - Early Years Education Coordinator Do send in your application by Monday, 4th November 2024. Head to the news section of our website www.eduspots.org to read about these jobs. #eduspots #job #team #wearehiring #ourcollectivefuture

At Ahenkro Spot, Catalysts and learners led a community engagement drive focused on child safety and protection. Using culturally relevant picture cards and communicating in local languages and dialects, the team facilitated meaningful conversations with community members about safeguarding practices. This interactive approach sparked important discussions on crucial child protection topics, helping ensure the message resonated deeply with community members. Want to learn more about our work and how Catalysts lead change in their communities? Sign-up to our newsletter here: https://lnkd.in/erQJq-F7 #education #EduSpots #safeguarding #childsafety #ourcollectivefuture

Our latest Meet the Team event was fantastic! It was a chance to talk through our digitialisation 🖥 journey so far, impact made, lessons learnt, and the journey ahead. We also spoke about our upcoming Big Give match funding campaign, which is aimed at advancing our digitilisation work. Here’s the link to the recording for the meeting. https://lnkd.in/dNchfat6 Huge thank you to everyone who joined and made fantastic contributions, and huge thanks to Wanderlust Ghana , Elsie Effah Kaufmann, PhD , The Fonthill Foundation, and so many others for all their support. 👌 #eduspots #ourcollectivefuture #digitialisation #digitalrevolution #digitaltools

🎈 🥳 It's my birthday! A good time for some gratitude for everyone has joined in the wild educational dreaming at EduSpots & beyond this year... So a big step was being appointed as EduSpots’ 1st official CEO - with huge thanks to all the trustees (Gayle, Amjad, Adam, Mark) for their belief in me, and in particular to our amazing Chair Prof Gloria Agyemang. After applying for fellowships for many (many!) years, I was excited to be selected for both the Gratitude Network Fellowship and the Dovetail Impact Foundation's Accelerator Portfolio, and have been immersed in two amazing scale-up curriculums with thanks to Morgan Banaszek and MIGHTY ALLY. A particular shout-out to Gratitude Network coach, Amy Moore, who has been an amazing thought partner, always taking me as she finds me, and also to Rebekah for her support in managing my health crashes. A dream of creating an app to solve operational challenges and create a Facebook for community educators has come to life, with thanks to funding from the Gower Street Trust and constant wisdom from Sally. I am grateful to Tara and the mc2h foundation for taking a bigger dive into their support for EduSpots; I look forward to continuing to work together to strengthen literacy outcomes. It was great to welcome Ceetah, Laura & Maggie from the Fonthill Foundation to 🇬🇭. A special shout-out to the EA Foundation & Educational Opportunity Foundation Foundation for their support of Catalyse and Ignite, and to all those funding our work. To the amazing professionals supporting our PD programme, we've all grown through your wisdom - thank you Chibeze, Amy, Akwasi, Avril, Richard, Dr. Jon Beale, Nicky, Elsie, Sally, Cormac & everyone! Thanks to Tamasine for helping me better advocate for causes I am passionate about. More to come... 🙏 EduSpots has a genuinely passionate staff team. Thank you Kennedy, Katie, Lawrence, Faad, Farida, Danielle, Andrew, Frank, Brittany, Cynthia, Getrude, Yahya, Abdul, Isaac, Sarah & all for your remarkable support! 🔥 To the 400 community-based Catalysts: you are our collective inspiration and drivers! 🚣♀️ Let's keep the dreams moving... here's to #OurCollectiveFuture. 🥂 #gratitude #birthday #education

Updates from Berekum Kato Spot 👇 On the 20th of October 2024, AKCOMLIB-GH organized a creative arts session for children aimed at developing their artistic talents and creativity. The session was led by skilled facilitators who directed and encouraged the children to express themselves through various art forms. The program began with a drawing activity, where the children were asked to illustrate anything from their surroundings. Many of them depicted different animals and their natural habitats, showcasing a variety of birds, fish, and land animals in beautifully detailed sketches. The young artists then painted their drawings, adding vibrant colors to bring their creations to life. In the second part of the session, the pupils were introduced to clay moulding. Under the guidance of their instructors, they learned how to shape and mould animals and their habitats using clay. This hands-on activity allowed the children to further explore their creativity and develop their fine motor skills. The program was a great success, as the children actively participated and demonstrated their growing talents in creative arts. They showed remarkable enthusiasm and were eager to continue learning and creating. This session aligns with AKCOMLIB-GH’s mission to nurture creativity and traditional skills among young learners, helping them discover and enhance their innate talents. #eduspots #art #creativity #creativekids #ourcollectivefuture

⚡️ YOUNG SCIENTISTS IN ACTION! 🔌 For the September challenge in our EcoSTEM clubs, learners explored all things circuits! Watch these curious learners at Akumadan Spot dive into the world of circuits with the Dext Technology Limited Science Set and put their predictions to test! 🔋✨ The big question? Which household materials make the best electrical insulators? They aren't just guessing - they're testing, observing, and drawing conclusions like scientists! From hypothesis to results, here's their process: ✨ Test different materials 🔍 Record their observations 📝 Compare predictions with actual results 🎯 Draw scientific conclusions This engaging activity fosters curiosity, critical thinking, and a deeper understanding of how things work. 🧠 #eduspots #STEMLearning #handsonscience #futureinnovators #youngscientists #handsonlearning #ourcollectivefuture

🧐 What do we mean when we say the Spots are 'community-led'? We've realised the importance of unpacking how this works in our context, given the huge variation in our NGOs use this phrase. 📖 Some actual and potential questions answered! ❓ How do you identify the Spots? Do you target specific regions? We have an open application process across Ghana, enabling community teams to apply to join the network. This ensures there is community leadership from the start of their involvement with us. ❓What reason do the Catalysts have to participate? Catalysts typically want to be the change they want to see, but whilst holding many assets, have some limitations in resources, skills and network support. Through EduSpots, they advance their professional and wider skill-set as community educators and agents of change. ❓Why don't you pay the Catalysts? Most Catalysts have full-time jobs (with 70+% being teachers), and act as Catalysts for no more than 1-2 hours a week. We build the community's capacity to pay their own Catalysts as they see fit, avoiding generating a dependent relationship on EduSpots' central funding, cementing the notion of community ownership. ❓What timings do your Spots open? This is completely up to the Spot teams, and depends upon the communities needs, aspirations and time! Of course, they aim for daily opening, with some times set for weekend and evening study. ❓Do you complete regular maintenance checks of the Spots and do renovations? In partnership agreements, this is listed as the community/school's responsibility with our regional coordinators supporting teams with local fundraising, and some flexible grant funding available. We give training on risk assessment and do basic checks on visits. ❓Can we give gifts to the learners / Catalysts? We avoid giving out any gifts or items from EduSpots to individuals, because we believe this can diminish a sense of community ownership and power, and potentially undermine those valuable assets that exist within communities. ❓How do you decide the focus of the clubs? Communities choose whether to lead 1-4 education strands (EduKidz, DigiLit, Ignite Equity and EcoSTEM), or devise their own club, with support from our specialists. The strands were determined by the network, with a formalised Catalyst committee forming shortly and 60% of our staff team coming from Catalyst backgrounds. ❓This Spot doesn't have enough books. When will you sort this by? We support Spots in leading their own resource collections; however, we also have staff dedicating to building relationship with partners such as Books For Africa and Book Aid International, alongside seeking funding for books by local authors. In summary, there's an inside-out mentality threaded throughout - following Cormac Russell's ethos of an assets based approach to development. 📷 Was great to visit the New Ebu team on Monday - September Spot Team of the Month! #ourcollectivefuture #communityleadership