On 17-19th December, 100 EduSpots volunteers and staff are moving to Techiman for their Annual Conference 2021. The theme of this year’s event is ‘Celebrating our resilience and forging ahead stronger”. 

The volunteers hail from 27 communities across 15 regions in Ghana. All of these communities have EduSpots libraries, which are owned and led by communities, and shared by local schools, impacting an estimated 15,000 users each year. Participating volunteers are representatives from a wider network of 400 volunteers in Ghana and the wider international context. 

The conference involves a number of collaborative workshops led by guest speakers and staff on topics ranging across education, entrepreneurship and leadership. These sessions include a focus on communication, monitoring and evaluation, child protection and literacy development.

EduSpots CEO, Miss Catherine Davison, commented: “The purpose of this conference is to enable us to continue to strengthen the close relationships within our network, and enable community members across Ghana to work together in solving local problems through education to create the future they want to see. This conference presents an opportunity to build our wider organisational strategy collectively, whilst nurturing local Spot development and celebrating the diversity of our network.” 

EduSpots Ghana Team Coorindator, Miss Yvonne Asamoning, commented:  “EduSpots has cause to celebrate because as a network we have succeeded in keeping the one thing that makes us who we are; community. We may have lost time when Spots have closed during the pandemic but we did not lose out on the core of what we stand for.”

On Saturday night, the network will also celebrate the graduation of the first cohort of volunteers to complete the EduSpots Community Leadership in Education (CLEd) programme. This programme is designed to give committed volunteers the skills and knowledge to lead change in their communities. Across the last year, CLEd participants have strengthened their educational leadership skills through a residential Academy, mentoring, and peer learning, ahead of receiving grant funding, resources and support to catalyse the impact of their Spots. 

The conference culminates in a dinner and awards ceremony on Sunday night which aims to celebrate the impact of volunteers and communities across the network through 25 individual and community awards.