Shaker
Schools
SHHS Senior Raises Funds
for Ghanaian School
Shaker Heights High School Senior
Ayande Joseph realized a need and
decided to do something about it.
When Ayande was in fourth grade,
his family traveled to Ghana for six
months, where he and his two siblings
attended school and found themselves
immersed in life there. When asked what
brought the Joseph family on this trip,
he explained that both his parents spent
time in various African countries earlier
in their lives.
“That was an experience that really
shaped their lives,” Ayande explains.
“They said this was an opportunity that
they wanted to give to their children.”
While in Ghana, the family
befriended Kwame Botchway and forged
a relationship that would continue
throughout the years and across
continents. Kwame eventually came to
the United States to study, and recently
graduated from Case Western Reserve
University. He has a passion for urban
development focused on inclusive and
equitable development practices.
Together, Ayande and Kwame
decided to reignite a fundraising effort
that originated eight years earlier by
Ayande’s older sister. They raised roughly
$1,000 for textbooks for the school in
Kwame’s grandmother’s village in Ghana,
a farming community.
These fundraising efforts helped
augment efforts by the school to provide
adequate resources for its students. The
textbooks allow students to prepare
for the West African Secondary School
Certificate Exams, an important factor in
college admissions. Providing textbooks
to underfunded schools can also help close
a disparity gap that often exists between
schools in rural farming communities and
better funded schools in more urban areas.
14 WINTER 2022 | WWW.SHAKER.LIFE
In addition to raising vital funds for students, Ayande keeps a busy schedule at the
high school, where he is a student in the rigorous International Baccalaureate Diploma
Programme and a leader in many clubs and organizations, including the Student Group
on Race Relations (SGORR) and the MAC (Minority Achievement Committee) Scholars
program. He even finds time to serve as co-captain on both the Varsity Boys Soccer and
Boys Track teams.
Ayande Joseph traveled with his family to
Ghana for six months when he was in the
fourth grade. Now in his senior year, Ayande
and family friend Kwame Botchway raised
funds to donate textbooks to the school in
Kwame’s grandmother’s village in Ghana.
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