The Girls Education Initiative of Ghana, GEIG is an educational organization founded on the premise to provide academic and financial support for girls, and applicants with special needs so they can access higher education and professional opportunities.
Operating for two years, GEIG supports twelve students in the Ashanti and Greater Accra regions.
Two of these girls, Hamdalatu Mustapha and Barbara Gyasi, two Ashanti Region students have become pioneers of our first class.
Seventeen-year-old Hamdalatu Mustapha is a graduate of St. Augustine’s Anglican junior high school, where for three years she served as girls prefect and the senior girls prefect in her final year.
Hamdalatu comes from a modest upbringing; he grandmother sells charcoal in the market and her aunt, whom she lives with is a market trader.
A very charismatic girl, Hamdalatu hopes to become a nurse in the future. She has gained admission to Fumena Amadidya senior high school as a general arts student.
Hamdalatu says, “I am looking forward to senior high school. I know it will be challenging at first being so far away from home, but the GEIG vacation classes last August at Lancaster in Accra has really prepared me to be independent and I’m very excited for this chapter of my education…if it wasn’t for GEIG’s support I would probably not be thinking of senior high and university.”
An equally gifted student, Barbara Gyasi informed GEIG of her decision to take the Basic Education Comprehensive Exam, BECE, as a rising third-year junior high school student.
With guidance and support from her family and GEIG, Barbara made us proud when she scored well enough to skip her third year of junior high and will begin studies at Asanteman senior high school.
The Gyasi family lost their patriarch four years ago to an automobile accident; Georgina Gyasi, her mother, was left without ample support. She is underemployed as she is afflicted with polio and has limited mobility.
Barbara has been admitted as a science student and appropriately because of her aspirations to be a doctor. Barbara is excited about the journey and says “I understand how great this opportunity is. Not only am I a GEIG pioneer, I’m also setting an example for my younger sister Tracy”.
GEIG is proud of Hamdalatu and Barbara and are looking forward to next year, our third year of operations where our remaining ten girls will as well enroll in senior high school.
Please visit http://www.girlsedgh.org/donate to support Hamdalatu, Barbara, and the rest of the girls.