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20.04.2015 Social News

Ghanaian social entrepreneur selected for 2015 Ford Fellowship

By GNA
Ghanaian social entrepreneur selected for 2015 Ford Fellowship
20.04.2015 LISTEN


Accra, April 19, GNA - Mr Hayford Siaw, the Founder and President of Street Library Ghana, has been selected to participate in the 2015 Ford Motor Company International Fellowship of 92nd Street Y in New York City, this May.

Mr Siaw, chosen among 25 participants from more than 250 applicants world-wide, will join a select group of emerging change makers and rising community leaders in the exciting and innovative programme.

Mr Siaw, in an interview with the Ghana News Agency, said he and the other participants would attend participatory non-profit management, strategic thinking, and leadership classes at the Picker Center for Executive Education at the Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs.

The 2015 group will also visit innovators from Yale University as well as model non-profit, business and government leaders as they focus on how to forge win-win partnerships between nonprofit, business and government entities.

He expressed gratitude to Tigo Ghana, Reach for Change and the Global Fund for Children for their vital, multi-year support.

"Their generous financial contributions and capacity building efforts were crucial and not only did them help us leverage and scale our impact on communities throughout Ghana, they helped bring our model global recognition," he added.

The Social Entrepreneur said these organisations explained that the Street Library Ghana, which began in 2011 as a single van full of books and other learning resources driven by him has grown exponentially, now serving over 10,000 children in 28 Ghanaian communities.

He said the organisation had also partnered with two communities in Liberia and in Cameroon, with pending efforts in Mozambique on the horizon.

He said his orgsnisation has commissioned an electronic document, where local West African oral histories, stories and fables were transformed into digital formats.

He said the new programme was made possible by the European Development Fund, via the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States cultural support programme as well as partnerships with Microsoft Portugal and the Fraunhofer Research Institute.

'I look forward to making new international contacts, expanding my knowledge base and learning from most innovative young minds in the field of social impact,' he added.

Ford Motor Company, a global corporation and world leader in corporate citizenship, and 92nd Street Y, the world's first global Jewish community and cultural center, are proud to join together for the Ford Motor Company International Fellowship of 92nd Street Y.

GNA

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