![Citadel Foundation For Kids [CFK]](http://www.citadelfoundationforkids.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/cropped-Screen-Shot-2016-02-09-at-7.00.43-PM.png)
YEDEA 2019*
Application deadline extended to February 25th, 2019: Apply here
This summer, travel to Ghana and become involved in a service learning project to improve child and maternal healthcare as well as child education.
Yedea is a summer service-learning opportunity in Ghana for American college students. Yedea means ‘ours’ in Akan Twi, the language spoken by Ghana’s Ashanti ethnic group. It will allow college students in Ghana and the United States (US) to work with
- each other,
- women’s and children’s healthcare professionals,
- education professionals including teachers and school administrators,
- patients
- and 7th grade students
in Koforidua, Ghana.
CFK is seeking interns for the Spring semester plus 4-8 weeks in Ghana during the summer for our three-part Yedea Program. Interns will use resources available in Ghana and skills learned as students to help develop innovative solutions for issues facing the pursuit of education and healthcare in poor communities of Ghana’s Eastern Region.
Part One
The three-part internship begins with an online orientation and introduction to connect you with local stakeholders in the target community who will become your virtual collaborators. You will work with your Ghanaian collaborator as well as a professional or faculty mentor of your choosing to design your education and/or healthcare project in detail.
Part Two
This part starts upon arrival in Ghana during the summer.
Education:
As an education intern, you will lead social entrepreneurship brainstorming sessions for 8 to 11-year-old Ghanaian children. This will allow you to learn more about areas for development within the communities while teaching Design Thinking strategies to Ghanaian children, to help them tackle future issues with strong problem-solving skills. According to Stanford University’s Design School, “The Design Thinking process first defines the problem and then implements the solutions, always with the needs of the user demographic at the core of concept development. This process focuses on [finding needs], understanding, creating, thinking, and doing.”
Healthcare:
As a healthcare intern, you will investigate uses of telemedicine in training healthcare professionals in rural areas, and connecting them to their colleagues for support when they need it. Telemedicine is the remote diagnosis and treatment of patients using telecommunications technology. You will first identify how it could be used and prototype versions of your idea using available resources in Koforidua, including your laptops, webcams, and mobile Wi-Fi hot-spots.
Minimum stay for the education internship is 4 weeks, but students are encouraged to stay for 6 weeks for a more immersive and mutually beneficial experience. Training and hands-on support will be provided throughout the entire internship.
Aid organizations don’t always know how best to use volunteers, resulting in frustrated, underutilized volunteer experiences. We provide a rewarding experience service-learning experience because we work with you to match your skills and interests to the needs of the community in which you will be volunteering. Moreover, you will be partnered with students from those communities during your project to help you design and prototype feasible solutions to problems you will address together.
Part Three
As you work together with Ghanaians to address their needs you will build meaningful relationships with them in the process that will give you a unique perspective into the challenges of their daily lives. When you return, you will complete the final part of this internship by sharing your experience and the stories of your Ghanaian colleagues (with their permission) through a symposium and through various social media channels.
Our goal is to enable you as a college student to understand the disparities in education and healthcare access in poor Ghanaian communities from the perspective of those affected by them. With this understanding, you will then work with people in these communities to address those disparities using readily available resources innovatively. Yedea gives an enriching, rewarding opportunity to build meaningful relationships with Ghanaians while working together to address the needs of their community.
What you can gain from this experience:
- Travel to Ghana during the summer of 2019
- Receive first-hand insights from American college students and recent grads who have done the program in recent years before you travel
- Connect via Skype with innovative college students and recent grads in Ghana who can help you plan your project during the Winter/Spring semester before travel
- Design projects that not only match your skill set but also address actual needs of resource-deprived Ghanaian communities
- Learn how to empathize with people of a different culture, to understand their needs, and to work with them to develop solutions that are feasible and effective
- Benefit from the option to continue your work after the summer, or transition leadership of your project to the next class of students and watch your it grow over the years as a lifetime CFK member
- Build meaningful relationships with the beneficiaries of your work other interns, and the members of CFK in the US and Ghana.
Please email info@citadelfoundationforkids.org for details.
*Yedea is not affiliated with any university or organization in Ghana or The United States*