Enhance Education and Maintain Digital Communications
The Need
The students at the Crossover International Academy are former slaves abducted from families and villages, cast from society, and robbed of knowledge. Education is their freedom. Wings for Crossover was established to help them access education. A vital component to a good education is reliable access to the internet. Predictably, access to the internet is an ongoing challenge and expense. It is one of our biggest ongoing needs.
The Vision
The Crossover connection sprang from a vision, that students (at any location, in any circumstance) could learn issues more deeply when they hold personal implications, and that global issues are local issues.
Both Jim Conti and Dave Yayravi believed it to be true.
Working in collaboration with students from dramatically different circumstances can help translate concepts into real-life problems to be solved, and it can open minds that have been limited by simple lack of exposure. Wings for Crossover hopes to aggressively expand the scope of subjects and projects that are researched, debated, and potentially implemented by the students of The Pegasus School and Crossover International Academy through collaboration.
And in order to do this, it must be able to maintain digital communication. Communications are vital to Crossover; satellite is their lifeline to the world. Students can use online reading and math programs to facilitate reading fluency and math skills, in addition to collaborative assignments with students globally. The Internet is not just vital for their educational needs, it is also necessary for fundraising and the overall well being at Crossover.
Historically, students at Crossover have really benefitted from free programs like Khan Academy. There are other vital math and reading programs that can help the students learn independently.
The Actions
Summer 2013
Thanks to generous donations from iDirect and Skyvision, Crossover International Academy is connected to the Internet by a high-speed satellite dish. (All of the images on the website were taken at Crossover and sent back via satellite. IDirect provided the satellite equipment; Skyvision offered Internet connectivity service free-of-charge for the first year.
Summer – Fall 2014
SkyVision offered Internet connectivity service free-of-charge for the second year. At the Pegasus School, an aquaponics system was built on the school campus for the purpose of student understanding and water monitoring. The Crossover students report their measurements on a Google doc, which is managed by students in the U.S.
September 2014
Curricular issues for the school year included: the implications of drought. The students in California were made aware of the current water shortages in their state through instruction, while the impact of water-shortage to the students in Ghana was more tangible. As the levels dropped in Lake Volta, the dam stopped producing electricity and their pond temporarily lost hydration; hundreds of fish died.
A generator was purchased for the school.
October 11, 2014
In 2012, the United Nations established the International Day of the Girl to promote girls’ rights, highlight gender inequalities that remain between girls and boys, and addresses the various forms of discrimination and abuse suffered by girls around the world. The girls of Crossover prepared speeches and set up a table in the local village to express their views to an unsympathetic local male audience. Video to the right.
2015: Renewed support from iDirect and Skyvision
Academically, any Pegasus Global Issues class subject can be enriched by the marriage of a local perspective to the Ghanaian viewpoint. Next up: micro-lending.
In terms of collaboration, Wings for Crossover student groups have formed at Sage Hill School and Mater Dei High School. Student driven initiatives like “Merry Mats” and the current drive for desks will continue to increase with student involvement.
2016-2019: Updated system and Good Academic Results
With great amounts of heat and rain, the satellite suffered some problems. That caused Crossover to be without the satellite for about 6 months. It isn’t easy to get a crew out to fix problems when they occur. However, with access to the internet, Crossover maintains access to a whole host of effective online learning programs. With that access and their efforts, in both 2016 and 2017, Crossover maintained its status as the number 1 academic institution in the region. Crossover students have earned the highest scores for 6 years running now!! Many also earn scholarships to high school after Crossover.
2020: Covid presents challenges
With covid, all Crossover education materials had to change. Students needed to follow government mandated new guidelines, much of which is online. That demand has stressed the satellite's capacity. Additionally, we are always looking for ways to pay the satellite bills. Please consider donations to help pay for the bigger bandwidth and new technology.
