NSBE - Convention 2020 - 20

INTERNATIONALNEWS

Supporting Tech Education in Rural Ghana

S

mall seeds can become big trees.
NSBE Ghana was formed in
1998, when the zeal of a few
U.S.-born members committed to
international expansion - Deidra Fair
James, Paul Pratt, André Willis, Kweku
Fleming and others - met the willingness of students at Ghana's
Kwame Nkrumah University
of Science and Technology
(KNUST) to join the National
Society of Black Engineers.
Two years ago, a U.S.-based
delegation from the Society,
including five current or former NSBE national chairs and one NSBE
founder, Tony Harris, attended NSBE
Ghana's 20th Anniversary Celebration,
in Accra. Participants in the event
came from Ghana, Nigeria, Gambia and
Rwanda as well as the United States.
Benefits from NSBE's international
outreach continue to flow Society-wide
today, as chapters in those African
countries are growing and are boosting
NSBE's membership numbers and influence in the U.S. and abroad.
In May of 2019, the Society donated
32 laptop computers to NSBE Ghana
from the Society's World Headquarters
in Alexandria, Virginia: another small
act that promises to make a large
beneficial impact. Members of the NSBE

Accra Alumni Chapter made a five-hour
journey over bad roads to deliver five of
the computers to Chebi Primary/Junior
High School in Ghana's Volta Region.
They were greeted there warmly by
the headmaster of the school, Augustin
Donkor; the teaching staff; students;

Continuing challenges include, among
others, poor access to the school by road
in rainy weather, inadequate access to
the internet in the village where the
school is located, and lack of shoes, educational materials and other basic necessities for the students, Agbanyo says.
NSBE volunteers have
pledged to visit Chebi
Primary/Junior High every
six months to spend time
teaching the students there,
he reports, and the NSBE
Accra Alumni Chapter delivered five laptops to another
school, Woti Primary, in November.
Additional donations from NSBE members are welcome, he adds, including
items such as book bags, shoes, books
and toys for young Ghanaian students.
"I want to thank (NSBE Executive
Director Karl Reid) and the entire NSBE
team for their continued support of this
project," Agbanyo says. "I will be happy
to visit these schools with you anytime
you are attending the NSBE conference
in Ghana."
"The NSBE family knows no boundaries," says NSBE National Chair Jocelyn
Jackson. "I look forward to the continued
growth of our Society in Africa as we
take NSBE's mission to wherever there's
a need." ■

In May of 2019, the Society donated 32
laptop computers to NSBE Ghana from NSBE's
World Headquarters in Alexandria, Virginia.

20 * NSBE MAGAZINE * CONVENTION 2020

parents; and an official from the Ghana
Education Service.
Ernest Agbanyo, secretary of the
NSBE Accra Alumni, explains that the
laptops are being used to enhance the
teaching and learning of information
and communication technology (ICT) at
the school.
"The headmaster expressed his joy
upon receiving the laptops from NSBE
Ghana," says Agbanyo, "stating that
they had been in need of computers and
computer accessories for their students
for a long time but to no avail, and that
they had been challenged to walk long
distances to other neighboring schools to
use those schools' computer facilities to
help their own students."

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