Charting new grounds with a Junior Camp at Armed Forces Senior High School

I'd never heard of Armed Forces Senior High School (SHS) in Kumasi until +Christian Junior Worgbah announced that they had accepted to host a +Junior Camp Ghana event. It's not the school we expected to debut +GhanaThink Foundation's career guidance series for senior high schools at. But that's just how the cookie crumbles sometimes. As I blogged earlier, June is Junior Camp Ghana month. Armesco, as the school, is affectionately called, hosted the first Junior Camp event at an SHS in Ghana this year. Dumasua JHS had the first #jcghana event this year, albeit at a junior high school, following on from what happened at +Barcamp Sunyani last year. Junior Camp Armesco happened last Saturday, June 7.

The first Junior Camp was held on January 30, 2013 at +Keta Senior High Technical School with the support of the +Barcamp Ho team. The second happened on July 13, 2013 at Kalpohin Senior High School with the involvement of the +Barcamp Tamale team. St. Augustine's College which hosts its second #JCAugusco edition this Saturday, hosted the third Junior Camp on July 27, 2013 with the participation of the +Barcamp Cape Coast team. +Ahaspora Ghana's interest in giving back to society resulted in a career mentoring event in partnership with the Junior Camp Ghana team. The December 30, 2013 event saw the attendance of students from multiple senior high school students.

While looking up Armed Forces Senior High School, I realised there was a school with the same name in Accra, and more popular too. I run into Nathaniel Padi, a young programmer who was previously featured in various blogs and spoke at TEDxLabone this year while with his namesake +Nathaniel Alpha, the Junior Camp Ghana lead. Turns out Nathaniel attends Armed Forces Senior High School in Accra. We expect to have a Junior Camp there soon as well.

Nathaniel's teammate +Kofi Kafui Kornu was at Armesco on Thursday to give a prep talk before the D-day. He joined 10 other mentors at Junior Camp Armesco. His teammate, +Eunice Mintah Young, who'd traveled from Takoradi, led a session on marketing and PR. +Prince Boadu mentored on Business and entrepreneurship and taught the students how to set S.M.A.R.T goals - specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely goals. +nana A-D focused on engineering in his session, challenging the students to be the best they can be. Kwaku Adu Acheampong focused on journalism, blogging and social media marketing in his session.

Daniel Ampofo, an entrepreneur, discussed the students' passions and how they could work on it in school. Gideon Amankwa, a university student, advised the SHS students on networking and the role of friends in their education. +George Arthur-Sarpong engaged the students in identifying the power of technology tools and using a lean methodology to creating products. +Kwabena agyare yeboah focused on careers in the literary space, sharing his own stories. +NANA AMMA GYEDUWAH INCOOM, a graduate MBA student shared and learnt something new from this experience like she's done in the past.

You can see some more photos from the event on the Junior Camp Ghana Facebook page. There were a number of tweets posted via the #JCArmesco hashtag as well. Looking to more students becoming skills-oriented and focusing on skills to sustain careers. Kudos to the team of Nathaniel, Christian, Kofi, Eunice, +Pedel Oppong and Esinam Yevu for another event with a helping hand from +Thelma Boamah. The +Barcamp Kumasi also supported.