Past Blogs

Ashley Shuyler’s Education Research Publicized in Tanzania

The research conducted by AfricAid’s founder on the country’s system of national examinations and their impact on Tanzania’s economic development was recently published by HakiElimu, a nationwide policy and advocacy organization that focuses on children’s rights to a quality education, and featured in Tanzania’s nationwide Business Times periodical. Click here to read the full article.

Colorado Academy’s AfricAid Club and Jane Goodall

Colorado Academy’s AfricAid Club was recently honored to be selected by Global Explorers as one of only ten groups to participate in the Global Explorers Citizens of the World Award Service Event. Each year, Global Explorers, a Colorado based non- profit that teaches leadership, service learning, cultural tolerance, and conservation biology through student travel, celebrates those leaders who inspire youth to take action. This year, they partnered with the Denver Zoo, the Wildlife Experience, and the Denver Museum of Nature and Science to honor world-renowned primatologist, Dr. Jane Goodall. As a part of the program, the AfricAid Club members put together an exhibit of the work they have been doing on behalf of AfricAid and women’s education in Tanzania, and then had the opportunity to share their exhibit with Dr. Goodall at the awards event held at Colorado Academy. That evening, the Club members then attended a VIP event at the University of Denver’s Newman Center to hear Dr. Goodall speak. It was an inspiring evening, and the Club members were excited to hear Dr. Goodalls’ remarkable story and of the work that she is doing with her own youth organization, Roots & Shoots. We are proud of the AfricAid Club for this recognition of their important efforts for women’s education!

Ashley Shuyler’s Work with AfricAid and Her Film Somebody Like Me Featured on KUSA 9News

The Denver film screening of Ashley Shuyler’s ethnographic film “Somebody Like Me” was previewed by Denver’s KUSA 9News in a segment highlighting AfricAid’s work on behalf of girls’ education in Africa. Stressing that, “an education is one of the most precious and invaluable gifts,” the segment took note of the over $500,000 that AfricAid has raised to help train teachers, provide much-needed school supplies and textbooks, and support African women with scholarships. It also discusses Ashley’s film, which traces the village life of a young Maasai woman, the first in her remote village to attend secondary school, who is now hoping to attend college to be a teacher and share her lessons with both her fellow villagers and with future generations. Click here to view the segment.

Ashley Shuyler and AfricAid Featured on KUSA 9News: My Africa with Bazi Kanani

Ashley Shuyler’s work with AfricAid was featured in Bazi Kanani’s series on Africa that aired on Denver’s KUSA 9News. In this informative and moving piece, entitled “My Africa”, the 9News anchor and reporter explores her family history in Tanzania and deals with several of the issues facing Africa today. One of the segments highlights Tanzania’s educational needs and Ashley’s work there with AfricAid to help provide educational opportunities for Tanzanian youth.

Ashley Shuyler’s Film Somebody Like Me Screened

Somebody Like Me, an ethnographic documentary film produced by AfricAid’s founder, Ashley Shuyler, was shown in multiple screenings at the Starz Film Center at the Tivoli in Denver, Colorado on October 26th. Somebody Like Me follows a young Maasai woman who was the first in her remote Tanzanian village to go to secondary school, after she returns home to her village. The film, which was also selected for screening at Russia’s recently-held Moscow International Visual Anthropology Film Festival, documents the three weeks that Ms. Shuyler spent there last summer, recording their traditional ways of life, herding goats, fetching water and gathering firewood each day, and their rich cultural heritage.

A prior screening was held at the Rialto Theater in Loveland, CO on August 23rd. The film was shown in collaboration with an artist group from northern Colorado that came together to support a primary school in Tanzania that they visited in 2007. The group displayed a number of their works during the evening, with 50 percent of the sale proceeds of their art going to AfricAid. Our thanks go out to the wonderful members of this group and to all the AfricAid supporters who attended the screening and made it such an inspiring and successful event.

Ashley Shuyler Speaks at Emma Willard School Symposium

On September 27th, AfricAid’s founder, Ashley Shuyler, joined a distinguished panel of speakers at Emma Willard School’s “Women, Power and Possibility” symposium. Located in Troy, New York, Emma Willard School is the oldest existing school in the U.S. to offer an academic curriculum exclusively to girls. The symposium, the second in a series, consisted of a panel of young women already making their mark around the globe. They examined the issues and challenges that women face when they translate their beliefs into action with commitment and conviction, and discussed their own experiences in that regard.