NEW YORK, CMC—A New York-based Grenadian nationwide says she has used her maiden go to to The Gambia to “ignite younger minds with the wonders of science training.
“My journey was not nearly visiting faculties; it was about sowing the seeds of curiosity and information, figuring out that training is the important thing to a brighter future,” Dr. Ansha Clement instructed the Caribbean Media Company (CMC).
The tutorial and writer have been amongst main educators from the USA and the UK who undertook the nine-day mission, which sought, amongst different issues, to “lay the inspiration for a extra educated and expert workforce” in The Gambia.
“The faculties I visited have been beacons of hope amidst financial challenges,” Clement stated, including that keen faces greeted me with curiosity and enthusiasm.
She stated conversations about science training flowed “effortlessly” as she shared anecdotes and insights, hoping to encourage the subsequent technology of scientists and innovators.
“However inspiration alone will not be sufficient; entry to assets is essential. That’s why I made it some extent to donate books to varied establishments, together with the Instructor’s Union, Timbooktoo Bookstore, and Starfish Worldwide.
“These humble contributions aimed to help science literacy at a younger age, offering college students with the instruments to discover and perceive the world round them,” she stated, noting that two people she met stood out as “beacons of change and affect.
“Their dedication to training and empowerment was palpable, inspiring me with their unwavering dedication to shaping a greater future for his or her communities,” the Grenadian-born educator stated.
She stated one such particular person was Mam-Yassin Sarr, a visionary educator “whose ardour for ladies’s training was infectious,” including that Mam-Yassin Sarr is the co-founder and director of Starfish Worldwide, a nonprofit group “that seeks to advance humanity by women’ training and service-learning alternatives in The Gambia.
“Within the phrases of Mam-Yassin, ‘I’m honored to have the ability to say that my educational and repair life has been targeted on sensible methods to play my half in serving to carry to fruition the concept that the world is one nation and mankind and its residents,’” Clement stated.
“It was empowering to see proof of how one individual can actively break boundaries and pave the way in which for a extra inclusive and equitable society,” she added.
Clement stated Sanna Camara, “a trailblazer in his personal proper,” was one other exceptional particular person she had the privilege of assembly on the mission. She stated he was a journalist who spent years in exile earlier than returning to his residence nation.
Clement stated Camara has over 20 years of expertise masking The Gambia as a reporter, workers author, and editor of a number of publications and worldwide retailers. He additionally labored because the media and senior communications officer on the Workplace of the President of Banjul between 2018 and 2020.
Clement stated he works as an impartial journalist and media guide, “constantly masking matters from migration reporting to transitional justice in The Gambia.”
In the course of the mission, Clement stated US and UK educators visited a number of faculties and mentioned with their Gambian trainer colleagues and training officers to share observations and insights and conduct skilled coaching for Gambian lecturers.
Additionally they held an awards ceremony on the Sir Dawda Kairaba Jawara Convention Middle, toured the wealthy historical past of The Gambia, and realized in regards to the tradition, “enabling them to help their immigrant college students higher, particularly these from West Africa.”
Clement stated the delegation additionally visited the “residence” of Kunta Kinte, a fictional character in Alex Haley’s 1976 novel Roots: The Saga of an American Household.
The free on-line encyclopedia Wikipedia stated, “Kunta Kinte was based mostly on one among Haley’s ancestors, a Gambian man born round 1750, enslaved, and brought to America, the place he died round 1822. “Haley stated that his account of Kunta’s life in Roots is a combination of truth and fiction.”
Clement stated “Child’s First Science: ABC,” her first youngsters’s guide, was launched in Brooklyn final Christmas and was out there on the Timbuktu Bookstore, the biggest bookstore in The Gambia, and The Nationwide Library.
When she had the chance to journey to The Gambia, she stated she was in a position to “observe and expertise new instructional settings, construct relationships with nice educators from all over the world,” and create “an area” for her to be “curious, reflective, and explorative of the influence and variations” that she will be able to make “globally, particularly within the Caribbean.”
Clement, who earned her Physician of Schooling (Ed. D) in organizational management, with an emphasis on organizational growth, from Grand Canyon College, stated the mission helped her higher “develop an understanding of targets for instructional programs and the perfect methods for growth and progress inside programs but additionally inside stakeholders of these instructional programs.”
As well as, she stated the journey helped her to “exhibit integrity, develop specificity behind visions, and be compassionate to encourage all stakeholders.”
She stated it was her “first step to creating systemic change globally, socially and culturally,” stating {that a} transformational chief needs to be “self-aware, genuine, in a position to collaborate (and) construct networks to affect optimistic change.”
“As I bid farewell to The Gambia, I carried with me recollections of smiles and laughter, eyes alight with curiosity and hope, and the humbling experiences of the origins of the slave commerce from visiting Kunta Kinteh Island and Jufureh Island.
“My journey was a reminder that the facility of training is aware of no bounds and that, by investing within the minds of tomorrow, we will create a brighter and extra affluent future for all,” she added. “I take these experiences again to my residence nation of Grenada, Carriacou, and Petite Martinique as a worldwide agent for change.”
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