A Journey Worth Taking

The opportunity to bring two of my students to the STARS Conference has been exciting and rewarding for both me and my students. I teach Science at Sirigu SHS, a small rural high school in northern Ghana. When I first announced the conference to my form 2 students, many of them were interested, but I only received two application letters. The letters were sincere and excited and from two of my best students, both of them prefects at the school. I chose Alfred and Grace to go the conference began to prepare and plan for the event.

I was at least as excited as my students were about going to Kumasi and spending a week learning about leadership and interacting with students from all over Ghana. I knew I would get the chance to see volunteers that I hadn’t seen in months. For the students, it really was an adventure into the unknown. Neither had traveled much before, and we were going to cover almost ¾ of the country before we arrived at our destination: Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology. We passed the 9 hour bus ride talking about the conference and charting our course by each roadsign we passed. Finally arriving tired and hungry at our massive dormitory and conference hall, we enjoyed a meal, met our friends new and old, and retired to bed.

Throughout the conference, I have watched my students get to know new friends, learn and teach, lead and share with the others here. It makes me so proud of my students when I see them blossoming into successful leaders and people. This conference has given them so many opportunities and they have taken advantage of them and learned so much. I am very happy to be able to bring my students to STARS, and I am excited to see how they will use the skills and knowledge they have learned when we return to our school.

- Toby Koy, Peace Corps Volunteer, Sirigu Senior High School