By: Kelsi Bowen
During a 2023 summer study abroad trip to Legon, Ghana, hosted by the Council on International Educational Exchange CIEE,Trinity Salmon, 17, senior at Bard High School Early College Manhattan, Suri Mejia-Garcia, 16, senior at Manhattan Center for Science and Mathematics, and Alma Barak, 17, senior at Cambridge Rindge and Latin School in Massachusetts, volunteered at the Billa Mahmud Memorial Future Leader School.
Billa Mahmud is located in Accra, Ghana. It provides free education, books, uniforms, transportation, and two meals dailyfor children in daycare up to students in 12th grade.
Some of these students work to support their families and can't afford school supplies making Billa Mahmud one of the only places they can receive education.
For Billa Mahumd to make education and food accessible for their students, they rely heavily on the contributions and support of volunteers like Salmon, Garcia, Barak, and all the other student volunteers who work with CIEE.
Before launching New Gen Global Tech, Garcia and Salmon raised $1,600 to purchase a new walker for Jayden, a 2-year-old student with cerebral palsy.
“Me and Trinity helped out with the class Jayden was in and he was just a sweet kid. I was just so happy to see that he was able to get a walker that was better suited for him because the other walker was broken and stuff. I was just so happy because he deserved it,” Garcia said smiling.
This achievement was one of the key factors that inspired the creation of New Gen Global Tech.
“New Gen Global Tech is a non-profit we created in order to help students in Ghana get computers” explained Garcia.
“Originally our goal was 25 computers and 10 of those were supposed to be laptops for the teachers, but now they need 36 and said ‘the style doesn't matter,” Salmon further explained.
While volunteering at Billa Mahumad, the founders were inspired to help the school acquire the computers they needed, and also ensure the students and staff have the digital literacy to effectively use them.
“It’s kind of like ‘teach a man to fish’; computers won't be as helpful or efficient as a resource if you don't know how to use them,” said Salmon.
“Whether that's getting in touch with local computer scientists or potentially going there ourselves, we just want to make sure that they do have access to education around the computers,” said Barak.
Although volunteering at the The Billa Mahumad School sparked a point of action within the founders, it also sparked a point of reflection.
“It made me realize how much privilege I have. There's so much opportunities that computers can bring us,” Barack shared.
She continued “There was one teacher there who had to ask the other volunteers for help ‘cause she wanted to apply to nursing school and she just didn’t know how to do that”.
“I remember being in the oldest class there with kids starting their computer science lessons. I remember distinctly recognizing the words and technological language I had seen in my classes back home, but you know, there were no computers there. So the thought kind of just pinged in me how much privilege I have to learn computer science and do so firsthand on actual computers,” said Salmon.
While this non-profit is for the benefit of the students attending The Billa Mahumd Memorial Future Leader School, the process of getting it started has been taxing for the high school students organizing it.
“Girl it's hard. It was just right in the middle of SAT season, I'm taking the ACT soon, so all of 10th grade was pretty busy. I didn't know what I was doing, where all my time was going the day was just like flying by,” said Salmon.
“It is a lot of work. Like the legal stuff is way more difficult cause we’re also still kids so you don’t really understand everything and sometimes we have to ask our parents to see what is best” Garcia said.
“It’s really hard to fit it all in because we all have difficult classes, then we have clubs, I have sports and a non-profit on top of that it’s really difficult to balance,” said Barak.
Overall, being students trying to handle legal documents, file paperwork, and finish homework proved to be difficult for the founders of New Gen Global Tech. Despite it being hard, they found ways to manage their time and stay focused on their goal.
“Starting it off we all had ideas and were able to communicate with each other what we thought was best and which way to go about certain things, so it wasn’t that hard because we all communicated well and compromised,” Garcia said.
“I agree I think in the moment it felt harder than it was but looking back all we really needed to do was ask for help. When it comes to sorting out ideas and figuring out how we want to fundraise, I think a lot of that just came naturally to us. We all work pretty well together and have the skills that we’re really good at and we all just balance each other out,” said Salmon.
On the New Gen Global website, there’s a section called, “ Meet The Kids” and it was intentionally crafted to showcase the students New Gen Global Tech are helping.
“There's a lack of individualism that having pictures of us with the kids kind of helps break down that they are real people, they're also just living. It's important that we say we went to Ghana and this is what we're doing and this is why we're doing this.” Salmon emphasized.
On their various social media platforms, they share Tiktok’s of the students talking about what the Billa Mahumad School means to them, what support they need, as well as co-founder Suri Garcia encouraging people to donate using tiktok trends.
Beyond New Gen Global Tech, Salmon, Garcia, and Barak are now preparing for their next step: college.
“I’m interested in majoring in environmental engineering because I have always been interested in that sort of thing. I've volunteered at a local garden stuff like that and I think it just makes sense for me,” said Garcia, with the hopes of attending Duke University next fall.
“ I think applying to college is my next step unless something life-changing happens. I do want to major in comp sci (computer science) or fintech which is financial technology that includes all the same things as comp sci just in a narrow financial space, and continue my work with NGGT,” Salmon said s, setting her sights on Georgetown University.
“I’m not sure of what I want to major in but I am interested in journalism because I really love it when the stories I write have a real impact on people,” said Alma, who plans on applying to Harvard University in the coming weeks.
In the future, New Gen Global Tech aims to assist more students at various schools worldwide with getting the technology they need. For now, though, their goal is to provide the students at Billa Mahumad with the computers they need by the end of this year.
“I think it's gonna be very challenging but I'm hoping for us to know where we are getting the computers from and what date for us to send them out. I think that will be possible by the end of the year, so that's the goal,” said Garcia.
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