Our Stories

We asked our Bridging Academy Graduating Class of 2019 to share some words of wisdom with the incoming class of 2020. We loved hearing from them – what they’re proud of, what they’d do differently, and most importantly, what they’ve learned – both head and heart – in their time at GWF.

GWF believes that empowering youth with skills is the first step in opening up opportunities for a better future. As we scale our operations, we continues to implement best practice education programmes for the thousands of rural young adults who are unemployed and who do not have access to tertiary education. In pursuit of that goal, we developed the Bridging Academy curriculum. It’s a yearlong course that enables adults to become proficient in skills that are required in a 21^st century workspace. Over the course of the year, it’s gone from being a functional skills based programme to a holistic skills based and personal development programme. 

We held some focus groups with Alumni to understand their experience during this programme and as a graduate. Here’s what one of them had to say:

“During this course we have learn how to gain self-confidence and we have gained the skills in using a computer. The presentations that we did were very helpful. At first it felt as if they were torturing us but at the end of it was a huge change to us. We are proud to say that we can now stand in front of a crowd and present. The facilitators do their work with love and they are very patient.” – GWF Alumni, 2018

You can read some of our Class of 2019 Graduate letters to the Class of 2020 below:

To learn more about our Bridging Academy programme, click here.

To view images of our graduation ceremonies, click here.