CATS for Ghana poised to help overseas students excel
LEXINGTON, Ky. (Nov. 21, 2024) — Each year, the Lewis Honors College at the University of Kentucky seeks to identify high school seniors who believe in bettering the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the world. One shining example of a member of the honors college is sophomore Akua Asamoah who, as a UK freshman, founded CATS for Ghana in March 2024.
“CATS For Ghana is a club dedicated to serving as an additional resource to help students in the Abotanso Village in Kumasi, Ghana succeed in school,” said Asamoah, who is also a 2024 Chellgren Fellow. “We offer free tutoring services to elementary and middle schoolers in the village via Zoom.”
The club has about 25 members, Asamoah said. Not all are from Ghana, but it has helped Ghanan students find each other and build a sense of community at UK.
“It definitely allows people to get to know Ghana more, and about the culture,” she said.
The club members plan to tutor more than 200 students in a rural village in Ghana, Asamoah said.
Given that agriculture is Ghana’s main industry, the ability for families to have disposable income for healthcare is a challenge. By facilitating the education of Ghana students, CATS for Ghana will help poor, rural families be able to improve their employment outlook and afford health care.
“My hope is to help the students do well,” she said. “In Ghana, if you don’t do well in school, you can’t go to college, you can’t get a job, you can’t pay for health care.
“CATS For Ghana is an organization brought about to reduce health and educational inequality in Ghana,” she continued. “I came into college already passionate about health and education and equality in Ghana. I didn’t want to wait until I had an M.D. to have an impact on a community that’s important to me. It’s my way of learning more about the link between education and health care access and affordability.”
Although Asamoah, who is also a student in the UK College of Public Health, has lived in Kentucky since she was eight years old, her country of birth, Ghana, has never been far from her heart. Once Asamoah became a U.S. citizen, she visited Ghana twice. During high school, Asamoah donated 500 books and received $500 in grant funding to provide electronics, supplementing her father’s initiative to renovate the public school and build a library in Ghana. Asamoah also provided online tutoring during the pandemic through The Covid NineTEEN Project as a freshman in high school. The combination of her virtual tutoring experience and her passion for improving education in Ghana led to her founding CATS for Ghana.
Asamoah plans to take her major in public health and minor in economics to medical school through UK's Early Assurance Program to perform global surgery for Doctors without Borders. In addition to CATS for Ghana, Asamoah conducts research with UK Gatton College of Business and Economics Professor Aaron Yelowitz, Ph.D., is part of the Global Educators Association, and hopes to be accepted into the Rural Scholars Program.
Any student interested in joining Asamoah’s efforts to prepare Ghana students to succeed in school can look for an upcoming event here: https://uky.campuslabs.com/engage/organization/forabetterghana.
As the state’s flagship, land-grant institution, the University of Kentucky exists to advance the Commonwealth. We do that by preparing the next generation of leaders — placing students at the heart of everything we do — and transforming the lives of Kentuckians through education, research and creative work, service and health care. We pride ourselves on being a catalyst for breakthroughs and a force for healing, a place where ingenuity unfolds. It's all made possible by our people — visionaries, disruptors and pioneers — who make up 200 academic programs, a $476.5 million research and development enterprise and a world-class medical center, all on one campus.
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