From A Street Hawker To Meeting Fmr Prez Clinton, The Story Of Shadrack Frimpong

Adom was a brilliant student almost always topping her class in elementary school but when it became tougher for her dad to support her education and that of her siblings, he supported the boys while the girls including Adom ended their education at the elementary level.

This decision he took according to Shadrack Frimpong, was based on the premise that no matter how educated a woman is, her place would always be in the kitchen.

Meaning, it will be wasted resources for Adom to go higher on the academic ladder.

Now Adom is a teenage mother with three kids she cannot adequately cater for.

Luckily enough, her two daughters would not suffer same fate thanks to the Tarkwa Breman Girls School established by Shadrack’s non-profit, Cocoa360.

Her (Adom) daughters are enrolled in Tarkwa Breman Girls School which is an initiative of Shadrack Frimpong with seed funding from the President’s Engagement Prize he won in 2015 at the University Pennsylvania.

Who is Shadrack Frimpong?
Shadrack grew up in Tarkwa Breman, a small village in the Western Region of Ghana, with no electricity nor running water.

"My mom is a charcoal seller and my dad is a peasant farmer. None of my parents attended high school," Frimpong said in an interview with moderghana.com.

In an interview with KSM on Metro TV, he disclosed he attended Opoku Ware School on Ghana Cocoa Board Scholarship and as life became tougher, Frimpong resorted to selling PK chewing gum and handkerchiefs on the streets of Kumasi to support himself throughout school.

He adds: I was even teased in school and called by the items I sold on the streets of Kumasi."

After graduation, he gained admission with 100% financial aid package to study at the University of Pennsylvania (Penn), an Ivy League university in the United States.

With his academic excellence, he won Penn’s President’s Engagement Prize in 2015 to a tune of $150,000.

Despite the many enticing opportunities that he had upon graduation, he decided to come back home to establish a girls' school and a medical clinic for his people.

Now back to Adom.
He was partly inspired to embark on this project first, because of his cousin Adom, who was brilliant back in elementary school but couldn't go higher on the academic ladder because of financial constraints, he said in the interview.

Now Adom is a teenage mother with 3 children she is unable to cater for, but as stated at the beginning of the article, her two daughters are enrolled in Tarkwa Breman Girls' School, which is a tuition-free.

Another inspiration came from the fact that he wanted to live a life of service.

Tawkwa Breman Girls school works on an innovative model where parents and guardians will work on cocoa farm to enjoy free tuition. Proceeds from the cocoa farm is used to fund the school.

According to Frimpong, the school accepts 30 students for each class from a pool of over 200 candidates.

Now Frimpong could only look back at his village and say: " I feel very proud and happy for my community. I am even more excited that together, we are using cocoa farming as a revenue source to self-sustain crucial services like health care and education that they need."

Information on news.upenn.edu, explains that the President’s Engagement Prizes, the largest of their kind in higher education, provide winners with as much as $100,000 to support project implementation and $50,000 for living expenses.

According to awards.ghanalegacy.com, Shadrack also founded Students for A Healthy Africa (SAHA) and the African Research Academies for Women (ARA-W). SAHA provides free health insurance for HIV/AIDS orphans in Ghana and has constructed a health clinic and potable water well in two communities in rural Nigeria.

ARA-W bridges the gap between male and female scientists in Africa through annual summer research internships for college women.

Awards.ghanalegacy.com further states that, he is a recipient of the prestigious Samuel Huntington Public Service Award which counts United States Surgeon General, Dr. Vivek Murthy among its past recipients.

He has also received multiple invitations to meet President Bill Clinton and other leaders at the annual Clinton Global Initiative and has been appointed an Associate Fellow of the Royal Commonwealth Society.

It adds that Shadrack was named to Future of Ghana’s Top 30 Under 30 in 2015 and is also a 2016 Cordes Fellow.

Last month, the Clinton Foundation honored him for his significant impact of work done through Clinton Global Initiative University (CGI U), 2017 and his continued dedication to making a difference in the world.

With the Honour Roll of the Clinton Global Initiative, former president of the US, Clinton selected 18 young global leaders from a pool of 8,700 nominations worldwide.

Copyright 2017 Modern Ghana
All rights reserved. This article, or any portion thereof may not be reproduced, paraphrased or used in any manner whatsoever without giving full credit to modernghana and the author of the article. The source should clearly state modernghana.com, and the writer's name when used. However, it could be used in brief quotations and in reviews.

Shadrack with Chelsea Clinton, daughter of former US President Bill Clinton