A letter from the President
Dear Friends, it’s been a fantastic journey these last twenty years. Ashesi started with thirty students in a tailoring shop that had gone out of business. The roof had caved in. I remember seeing that building and thinking, “Wow, this is beautiful. This is the perfect building for us.” There were cracks in the walls and we had a contractor who patched the cracks putting in chicken wire and then cement. That’s how Ashesi started – but it was beautiful. Currently, Ashesi has 3100 alumni and students, with 90% of our students receiving amazing career placements after graduation. Half of our students are on scholarships, and half of our students are women.
In this report, you’ll read about some of the impact we have had. Recently, we’ve been ranked among the top ten in Africa by the Times Higher Education (THE) impact rankings for universities in the world [p.4]. We’re also working with other universities on the continent through a program called the Education Collaborative. Under this Program, 268 universities have worked with us on pedagogy, how to improve career readiness for students, and how to improve the work that they’re doing in entrepreneurship and ethics. We estimate that 150,000 students have seen direct changes in their institutions, the courses that they’re studying, and in the student services they have access to [p.13].
We also have a climate innovation center through whose work over 300,000 households in Ghana are getting access to new services and products through climate smart businesses [p.15]. Today, Ashesi is in a very different place than it was when we started. This is especially true of the community we have built, and the strength of leadership that Ashesi continues to demonstrate. Thank you for your support and advocacy. I am very confident that these next 10 years are going to be consequential for us, for Ghana, for Africa, and for our collective contribution to the world.