by Merritt Frey, Executive Director

One key issue in any international development project is sustainability — how do you make sure a project is something a local community wants and is willing and able to support. Over the last 16 years of our work, the partner villages we work with have really driven our work and kept every school we’ve built with them functioning. But there is always room for improvement, and that’s where the new Alumni Networks come in!

Inspired by active alumni networks at a few of our schools, this year we are piloting the idea of fostering similar networks in other schools. For the pilot, we are testing the idea in two partner schools — Denik Middle School in Zambougou and Jade & Gabe Mellor Middle School in Sequessona.

Our role is to bring alumni from the schools together and foster a discussion about how they think they can best help current students. Then, we have a most grant we provide to help them implement their top ideas for aiding the students and the school.

We have been overwhelmed with the alumni response! Preliminary meetings in each village were attended by more than a dozen alumni each and they had great ideas about how to give back. Some ideas focus on making the school a better place — such as school yard clean-ups or redoing the classrooms’ chalkboards. Other ideas included bringing in career speakers to inspire, hosting alumni vs. student soccer matches to bring some fun to school, and awards for the top students each year.

We look forward to working with these two new Alumni Networks this year, and hope to learn enough from the pilot to take this idea out to all of our schools in the future. By building more local support for the schools and their students, we think the whole community will be that much more engaged in the school and it’s students, and see the true power of education more broadly!