Hi everyone!

My name is Arielle and I’m a senior at Westtown School. I’m super excited to be one of the lucky 14 people this year who get to travel to Essiam, Ghana at the Heritage Academy and teach! I’ve travelled all around the world and visited about 30 countries during my lifetime but I’ve never been to Ghana or even Africa before.

From 2006-2010, I lived in England with my family and attended an international school there. This allowed me to travel the world and have Europe at my doorstep. Of all of the places I’ve visited though, which range from Mexico to Dubai, I know that Ghana is going to be a completely different experience. I really don’t think anything could compare and that’s why I chose to sign up for Ghana. I know for someone like me who has seen many parts of the world this would be the only trip that would be truly life-changing because Ghana is so different from any place I’ve ever been.

I think what really excites me about Ghana, from what I’ve heard, is the positive energy that is emitted there and the pure excitement for learning. I’ve been told that the kids there have a passion for learning and are always trying to learn more. They don’t take anything for granted as we in the US sometimes do. I know that even though I will be the teacher I will also be learning a lot from these kids about their lifestyles and their perspectives on the world. Seeing how different the living conditions are over there versus here in the United States is going to be an extremely influential experience for me. I hope to learn a lot about Ghana and the culture while visiting. When we’re not teaching we’ll be doing some sightseeing and visiting the slave castles in Cape Coast and Elmina, the National Museum in Accra, the W.E.B Dubois House, and Kakum National Park.

I chose to teach choir while in Ghana because someone once told me that “If you don’t love what you’re teaching then neither will the people learning it.” Choir is a class I truly enjoy and sharing my love for singing with the kids in Ghana will hopefully help them understand why music is a universal language and help connect us on a new level. I really hope that by the end of this project we will all be singing the same song (literally and metaphorically). I won’t have Internet while I’m there so all of my posts will be after the project has ended but I’m thrilled to share this life-changing experience with you all!

~Arielle