Ashinaga USA Staff Visit High Schools in Sierra Leone, Malawi, Zambia, and Botswana

For three weeks in February 2025, Ashinaga USA staff Elisa and Lynne traveled to four countries in Sub-Saharan Africa to visit potential high school partners and interview candidates for the next Cohort of Ashinaga Scholars. Our goal, along with the other Ashinaga regional offices that support Anglophone students, is to establish two pipeline high schools in each Anglophone country, from which Ashinaga will recruit high achieving, low-income students. The US office is especially focused on supporting students from fragile states and countries that are unrepresented in higher education.

Building on the success of our 2024 Pipeline Recruitment Trip, this year we visited four schools in Sierra Leone, three schools in Zambia, two schools in Malawi, and four schools as well as the Ministry of Education in Botswana. In some countries, the schools we visited were multiple hours away from the capital city; we visited one school 12 kilometers off the main road to which students walk 3-4 hours each way to attend school. These visits not only allow us to identify potential partnerships but also provide a learning experience about the different country and cultural contexts our students come from as individuals. For example, understanding the nuances of the national examination systems in each country allow us to better advocate for our students during the university application process.

If you would like to support the work of Ashinaga USA, please consider donating to our new "USA Plus" Initiative! This Initiative represents the extension of our mission to support additional brilliant students from our partner high schools on the continent. You can donate online here: Donate to Ashinaga USA