We Belong | 2022 Impact Challenge

Team Members: Jailin Turner, Roberto Ramirez, Antoniah Etienne, Briannya Evans

Impact Partner: Human Factor Youth Leadership Academy

The Challenge: There is a general lack of accessibility to education and transportation to kids with disabilities in Ghana.

SDGs Addressed: SDG 4: Quality Education, SDG 10: Reduced Inequalities

The Solution: In order to ensure youth with disabilities to basic year-round education, we will get in touch with government officials to develop: Student Transportation Services (or "STS"), get an experienced psychologist to go to the school and identify the children with disabilities and require workshops for teachers to learn more about how to include and incorporate inclusivity into their daily curriculum. And because we believe that it's important to teach kids that we are all different we would like to introduce Best Buddies, a nonprofit organization, to help make connections between students with special needs and their peers stronger.

The Reason: We picked this challenge because we believe that everyone should have an equal opportunity to a good education. Having close relatives with multiple disabilities and facing various challenges is truly heartbreaking for us. Imagining young kids in Ghana going through these struggles and not getting any education has motivated us into changing that. We can find ways to overcome some of these challenges, like not going to school and discrimination by their peers.