Tag: African Students in America

Education, Opinion

UC Berkeley needs to support African language programs
Advertisements

By Martha Saavedra and Leonardo Arriola

Every semester, UC Berkeley offers many new courses. The Amharic language course offered this spring is especially noteworthy. Except for a brief pilot program in 2006, this is the first semester students are able to take a course in Amharic, one of the languages of Ethiopia, which is spoken by nearly 26 million people worldwide. The course, which only opened for enrollment the week before the spring semester, was nearly full by the end of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, just before classes started.

Clearly, there was a pent-up demand for this language. Student motivations include plans for research, study, travel and work, as well as deepening cultural and familial connections. Amharic stands out as a new course at UC Berkeley with many motivated students.

Students studying African languages at UC Berkeley — currently, Arabic, Amharic, Chichewa and Swahili — are poised to participate in one of the most significant global developments unfolding in the 21st century: the increasing importance of Africa demographically, economically, socially and culturally.

Africa currently constitutes about 17 percent of the world’s population. It is the youngest continent in the world, and the youth population is only increasing. Significantly, this means that the world’s working age population will be largely African. Economically, overall growth rates on the continent are relatively high, with the International Monetary Fund reporting 3.76 percent real GDP growth. Ethiopia’s rate is an extraordinary 8.49 percent.

Continue reading “UC Berkeley needs to support African language programs” →

Education

Group in New York awards grant to help American and African students interact
Advertisements

More than 7,000 miles separates Western New York from Namibia, Africa, however that distance will seem less now thanks to a recent grant award and the Building Cultural Bridges program.

Erie 2-Chautauqua-Cattaraugus BOCES is part of a grant consortium that was recently awarded a three-year Learning Technology Grant from New York state. The grant, in partnership with Educators of America and its Building Cultural Bridges program, focuses on increasing cross-cultural awareness between diverse countries.

“This is a great opportunity for our students and staff to see beyond our borders and community,” said Bryan Olson, Coordinator of Distance Learning. “By utilizing video technology equipment, students and staff will travel to places that are culturally and ethnically different from their own. It makes the world smaller and unites us as a global community.”

said Bryan Olson, Coordinator of Distance Learning. “By utilizing video technology equipment, students and staff will travel to places that are culturally and ethnically different from their own. It makes the world smaller and unites us as a global community.”

The $527,011 grant will provide video technology equipment, project-based learning projects and program support through personnel to facilitate the program and connect classrooms. The students in the E2CCB component school districts of Pine Valley, Jamestown, Gowanda, Cassadaga and Forestville, in addition to Kenmore-Town of Tonawanda and Cleveland Hill UFS districts, will benefit from the enhanced programming.

Continue reading “Group in New York awards grant to help American and African students interact” →

Culture

West African Students host annual African week to highlight diversity
Advertisements

From Feb. 17-23, the Wellesley African Students’ Association (WASA) invites the Wellesley College community to take part in Africa Week. Originally called the African Film Festival when it was established in 2004, the event as a chance for the community to focus on different African perspectives through film.

Continue reading “West African Students host annual African week to highlight diversity” →
New to the USA

South African Jermaine Mentoor wins soccer scholarship to study in Florida
Advertisements

His hard work and efforts to get noticed at recent international trials has paid off for 17-year-old Jermaine Mentoor who has left South Africa to follow his soccer dreams.

Last year in March, Mentoor participated in local trials he saw advertised on social media. The trials were live streamed to America and Mentoor was one of 19 boys from South Africa, Ghana and Zimbabwe who were selected to participate in a soccer showcase in Florida in July last year, the end goal was a scholarship to play and study in the USA. Continue reading “South African Jermaine Mentoor wins soccer scholarship to study in Florida” →

Communities

More Africans seek education in America. Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana lead the pack
Advertisements

The 2018 Open Doors report on international education has revealed that the United States hosted 1.09 million international students during the 2017/2018 academic year.This marks a 1.5 percent increase over the prior year. The number of Sub-Saharan African students hit a record high at 39,479, marking a 4.6 percent increase over the prior year. This report from modernghana.com gives more details
Continue reading “More Africans seek education in America. Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana lead the pack” →