PH International

Social Media Skills Enhances a Young Leader’s Volunteer Work

USA | Global New Media Lab | 20 Oct 2015


Before coming to the United States as a high school exchange student, Raymond Okyere-Forson, was already a respected young leader in his home community of Ashaiman, Ghana for establishing GreenAid in 2012. GreenAid is a youth volunteer group that plans and implements community projects that provides needy children opportunities to learn and play. The skills he learned in PH International’s Global New Media Lab (GNML) while studying in the U.S. allowed him to build on his leadership skills and use social media for greater civic engagement.

Because of his outstanding work in PH’s GNML Online course, Raymond, 18, was selected to participate in the Youth TechCamp held in March 2015 in Burlington, VT. During this one week training of trainer’s workshop he enjoyed learning how to plan and facilitate training as well as gained advanced digital media skills which he applied to his work with GreenAid. Raymond remarked “The Youth TechCamp has really boosted my confidence in the usage of various social media platforms and has broadened my horizons too.”

On August 5th, Raymond, along with two other youth volunteers from GreenAid, trained 46 junior high school students at St. Mary’s International School in Ashaiman. This half day training taught students how social media has connected the global community and provided examples of how social media is being used to bring about change. Raymond is now planning a second training workshop that will be offered in collaboration with a Youth Leadership Seminar being organized by GreenAid and Life Alerts-Ghana later this year.

Raymond participated in the Kennedy-Lugar Youth Exchange and Study (YES) program funded by the U.S. Department of State and studied at McDowell Early College in Nebo, North Carolina during the 2014-2015 academic year.

The Global New Media Lab is a U.S. Department of State funded program facilitated by the Bureau of Education and Cultural Affairs, implemented by PH International that teaches exchange students how to harness the power of social media to create campaigns for social change in their home communities. During the Youth TechCamp students develop valuable leadership, public speaking, and training skills to help them be leaders of social change in their communities. Students leave with an action plan for their follow-on projects, designed to train others on how to use social media and other forms of technology for greater civic engagement.

For more information on The Global New Media Lab, please visit www.ph-int.org/gnml