Happy 2014 to all! This post is waaaay overdue. So much has happened since my last post in September. Most importantly, we now have 3 new Afafanto Scholarship recipients. Issahaku Adzifa is from Larabanga and attended Bagabaga Demonstration Junior High School. Abudu Slamatu is from Damongo and attended Yabum Junior High School. Our third Afafanto Scholar is special because she is the first one to be accepted to study the sciences. Her name is Zelia Sayibu. She is attending Bimbilla Senior High School.
This is Zelia: 
We are very proud of all of our new students. Currently they are on a Winter break. It is the time of the Hamattan in Ghana. This is a very dry, hot and dusty wind that blows down from the North.
Emelia, our erstwhile Africa coordinator is finally back home with her family just in time to celebrate the holidays. It was beginning to get a bit too frosty for her in the Northeast US. While she was here, she delivered a beautiful 9 pound baby girl whose English name is Sandy after me. I am so touched.
As I said in my last newsletter, we have made many plans for this new year. We hope to hire more office help in Tamale and a student intern here in the U.S. to handle the growing tasks of Leah’s Dream. We now advise one graduate, administer scholarships for 9 girls; and the job of keeping track of each one as well as promoting the next crop of applicants for 2015 is quite time consuming. Meanwhile my job of fundraising for our growing organization has again entered the planning phase. This year we expect to hold a benefit concert in April complete with an “African Market” theme. Stay tuned for more on that later, it should be another fun fundraiser.
Emelia and Sandy Dazaa Seidu
So, as Leah’s Dream and the Afafanto Scholarship Fund enters its 4th year of operation, we can proudly say that we have begun to fulfill the first part of the mission we have set forth: “…to carry on Leah’s legacy of compassion, leadership, academic excellence, and a spirit of giving, the Leah K. Horowitz Afafanto Scholarship will sponsor promising young women from Northern Ghana so that they can continue their education through secondary school.”
Now as we begin to graduate these amazing young women, we will turn our attention to helping to fulfill the second part of that mission: “It is hoped that these special young women will gain the knowledge and skills that they need to empower and improve the lives of women and children in their communities.” We begin with our first graduate, Mariama Iddrisu who is pursuing a career in nursing. This year Mukaramtu and Arabiatu will be graduating. I am looking forward to going, this year, to their villages to shake their hands personally.
Again, all my best,
Sandee