The thirst of Ashesi students to change Africa is incredible. Meet Grace Amponsah ’16, an Ashesi student pursuing Business Administration who is fulfilling the Ashesi vision of ethical and entrepreneurial leadership.

Grace, who attends Ashesi on scholarship, was selected for the 2015/2016 Dalai Lama Fellows program at Ashesi. She will receive $10,000 in funding to implement her girls education project, A New Dawn. The project aims to tackle barriers to education faced by girls in Berekuso, and help them develop stronger potential for success. “Teenage girls are among the most vulnerable in our society,” Grace says. “Statistics by the Ghana Health Service revealed that 750,000 teenagers between the ages of 15 to 19 get pregnant annually. I started the A New Dawn initiative to reach out to young girls and help them understand how to succeed by making better life choices.”

Ashesi is part of an exclusive list of twelve international campuses that participate in the Dalai Lama Fellows program – along with other schools such as Stanford, Oberlin, and Princeton. Grace is the first female Fellow at Ashesi, as well as the first Fellow to have a solo project chosen. As part of her Fellowship, Grace attended the Ethical Leadership Assembly in San Francisco in June 2015, where she received coaching on her project and networked with Dalai Lama Fellows from around the world.

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