Description:
Imagine growing up in an economically challenged neighborhood where illiteracy, teenage pregnancy, drug abuse, incarceration and academic underachievement are the norm. Can you picture this environment where not only are you not expected to dream your dreams but not even encouraged to live up to your full potential. Imagine living in surroundings where your safety is given more thought in the course of the day than your studies. An environment where possible aspiring future lawyers, scientists, doctors and statesmen are discouraged, or lured into a detrimental street life, which wastes precious potential for a solid future.
Now, can you visualize a child achieving against these challenges? Consider a young scholar, fully engaged in education, eager to expand their world and excited about exploring new opportunities. KIPP WAYS Academy (www.kippways.org) is an innovative national charter school program that allows these youth to tear down the many obstacles before them and encourage them onto a path of success. KIPP WAYS scholars have recently returned from their trip to Ghana, Africa, which enabled them to embrace their African roots. Traveling abroad is an education unto itself and this excursion will only further enhance their knowledge. You can help capture this excursion on video.
This timeless and captivating documentary is now a work-in-progress and at its completion will allow you to share in the experience of this amazing journey through the eyes of these young Americans. It will chronicle the odyssey of this group of KIPP WAYS Academy scholars on their sojourn to Africa. They have been studying their ancestral histories and this trip is an enriching way to explore their heritage. This experience will be a monumental journey of self-discovery, and serve as a cultural exchange on the commonalities and differences of people in other lands and how it all relates to their world.