Welcome!! We are proud to share our news!! George visited Elmina for 2 weeks to review and celebrate our achievements and plan for 2022.
Thanks to all our donors who enable us to “change lives through education”.
TOMORROW’S STARS METHOD
OUR MAIN PROGRAMS ALL FIT TOGETHER TO “MAKE EDUCATION POSSIBLE” AT THE FOUR SCHOOLS WE SUPPORT AS STUDENTS GROW UP TO BECOME THEIR DREAMS.
- ENABLE SMALL CHILDREN TO READ, WRITE AND SPEAK ENGLISH BY GRADE 3.
- SUPPORT SCHOOLS WITH LIBRARIES, COMPUTER LAB, TUTORING, CLUBS, ETC TO FIND THE BEST STUDENTS.
- MONITOR AND DEVELOP HS STUDENTS AT LOCAL EDINAMAN HS.
- PROVIDE PAY IT FORWARD OPPORTUNITIES FOR TWO YEARS TO HS GRADS.
- SUPPORT QUALIFIED STUDENTS IN UNIVERSITY/TERTIARY TO ENABLE THEM TO “BECOME THEIR DREAMS”!!
HELPING THE SMALL CHILDREN READ!
WE HAVE SOME GIFTED YOUNG WOMEN HELPING CHILDREN LEARN TO READ. SHARON, LETICIA AND AGGIE ARE FEATURED HERE. SHARON IS AT CHRIST CARES RESOURCE ROOM, LETICIA AND AGGIE ARE AT BANTUMA SCHOOL AND KISSIE SCHOOL DOING THEIR NATIONAL SERVICE TEACHING KINDERGARTEN.
We use “Jolly Phonics” techniques to help children learn the letters, sounds and motions. It is an effective learning tool. At Christ Cares, small (12 or less) groups go to our RESOURCE ROOM where Literacy Specialist Sharon, helps them learn through play and reads to them in her own special style.
She reads English stories and helps the kids by telling the story in Fanti. This is fun to watch as they learn. Mostly in Ghana, kids this age sit and listen and repeat. We make learning English fun at Tomorrow’s Stars!!
PIF DAY!!
PIF Day is always a highlight for us. Many university students and graduates return to share their success stories. Our Pay It Forward (PIF) students also attend as well as the Christ Cares Int’l School teachers.
This year, most of our 24 selected Edinaman HS students (see tan shirts above) were in attendance. They know our PIFs and Stars from their days in primary school. There were many questions about their journey. Now the Edinaman students are more motivated than ever to join us.
awson and Osei
We also had great discussions about Covid 19 and the vaccines that are now available in Ghana. The questions and answers and debates make me proud of our people.
STAR STORIES AT PIF DAY
We highlighted 5 people at PIF day. They all recently completed their diploma/degree, most are on to a year of National Service. Here are photos and stories.
AGGIE: She started teaching Grade 1 at Christ Cares, and went to distance learning at UCC. She has diploma in primary education and has been assigned for her 1 yr national service. In less than 3 weeks, her 42 KG1 students know the phonics letter, sounds and motions. See the video. Amazing!!
FRANCIS AND ISAAC: Francis and Isaac graduated together at KNUST. Francis achieved 1st class in Management and Isaac was valedictorian of 92 in Pre-Law. We are proud of them.
OTABIL: Top clinical Physicians Asst at UCC and in top 5 of 60 academically. He volunteers at UCC hospital and hopes to be posted there (and be paid) in March. Loves caring for patients and excels in the emergency situations. He also is ping pong champ.
LETICIA: She talked of overcoming struggles in math with hard work, then achieving a Early Childhood Ed degree with Montisorri degree also. She is now in National Service teaching KG1 at nearby Bantuma school.
See our blog at www.tstars.org/blog for many more photos and stories about our successes and PIF day.
TEAMWORK: TOMORROW’S STARS AND CHRIST CARES.
Christ Cares school is a private school in Elmina where Tomorrow’s Stars began. In fact, we funded the building in 2004-2007. The school proprietress, Hetty, hires and pays teachers, collects school fees from students, etc and manages the school.
In the past, Tomorrow’s Stars role has been “support” (libraries, computer lab, clubs, scholarships, etc).
This year, Tomorrow’s Stars and Christ Cares began to co-manage school activities. Our Managing Director Solo is now the “Academic Asst Headmaster”, joining HM Cobbinah and Admin Asst HM Osborn (a TS student). This team is working well together with strong trust and creativity.
We have more PIFs this year, so each class has a teacher AND A PIF. This makes a huge difference when class sizes are often up to 40. They are working well together.
BECE results (JHS National Exam) are not in yet, but results from our “district mock” exam are better than ever. We are excited about this TS/CC partnership which was especially strong in helping the Grade 9 students prepare.
We had a special dinner and celebration for these 24 students who will be going to HS, mostly at Edinaman.
AUTHOR JOE BROWN INSPIRES OUR STUDENTS:
Author Joe Brown writes imaginative children’s books and has donated books to Tomorrow’s Stars in the past. Recently we did a zoom call with Joe reading his books and taking questions from some of our JHS students.
To followup, Joe’s daughter sent us a video of the call and we used it with about 40 students and reading club members. And Joe sent 4 copies each of 5 of his books!
US and Ghana English have differences and can be hard to follow, so we use a “linguist” (Sharon in this case). The meeting was great. Students watched Joe read his “The Kid in the Backseat” book, while following the book in four groups. Then Sharon read the book (in English) while moving to Fanti as necessary and having conversations with the students. It was a wonderful thing to watch.
Sharon reading to kids: Volunteer Reading Specialists Toni Saul and Sue Gonzalez say that reading to children is the best way to start them reading. It is especially true in Elmina where the small ones do not hear English at home.
WRITING STORIES
Our reading clubs have been writing stories for about 10 years. With Joe Brown’s imagination books, it has opened up new ideas to our students and some are writing imagination stories. We look forward to showing them to Joe Brown.
Tomorrow's Stars 