Ophelia Opoku
Everyone claims their passion for girls’ rights and freedoms, yet only a few are willing to embark on the journey to help them achieve these rights. A world where talkers will actually be doers, granting girls access to adequate resources to help them achieve their full potential, is the world Ophelia envisions. Coming from an economically and socially disadvantaged background, education has been a major tool for Ophelia. Therefore, she is committed to helping youth excel through similar opportunities. Her major long-term goal is to be a global policy maker who will champion the girl-child education as a poverty alleviation tool. As a start, she runs the Young Queens club in the school where she serves as an English teacher. Having identified the absence of mentorship and role models as a cause of low motivation, the club provides mentors, financial support and leadership training as well as entrepreneurship skills to the girls. Ophelia, apart from facilitating programs, embarks on home visits to engage parents of the club's 20 girls. Ophelia applied to Women Changemakers for Education with the goal of extending activities of the Young Queens club to the entire community and also neighboring communities. Ophelia also hopes that through the Fellowship, she will be able to provide financial support and learning materials to needy girls and build an ICT centre to serve her community as well as surrounding communities. Ophelia holds a bachelor's degree in Social Work from the University of Ghana. The courses she studied as well as her work experiences nurtured and cultivated her passion and commitment for working with children and improving the lives of the vulnerable.