Sharing Some Very Exciting News!
It took us nine years but he finally made it.
By: Ashleigh N. DeLuca
I have waited almost a decade to share this beautiful and exciting news with you all.
As you may remember, after my gap year in The Gambia in 2009, I created a scholarship program to help support a small group of my sixth-grade students. My vision for the scholarship program was to simply enable these students to graduate from high school, which was an almost impossible accomplishment in the country at the time. But for Adama Jarju, one of the scholarship recipients, earning his high school diploma deeply inspired him. He had always carried a secret wish to go to college in America, and with a high school diploma in hand, his dream felt within reach.
Adama emailed me shortly after he graduated high school to ask for my help to make this college dream a reality. He also asked that his twin sister, Awa, be able to join him in this college journey because his father had instilled in his family the importance of education for both men and women. Eventually, a third young woman, Penda Jallow, would join them on this journey as well.
I warned them that an American college education was difficult for many American families to afford, and there was no guarantee that I could make it happen for them. But I promised them that I would do everything in my power to help them.
This began our nearly decade-long journey to get them onto an American college campus. It ended up being so much more difficult than I could have possibly imagined, filled with opaque, expensive, and confusing visa procedures, frustrating rejections, and bitterly painful heartbreaks. Yet, every time we were knocked down, Adama always managed to drag himself back up again with a smile and infectious positivity.
So here is the wonderful news I promised you at the beginning of this note.
It took us almost 10 years, but last Monday, Adama started his bachelor's degree in computer science at Temple University Japan in Tokyo!
So many of you have supported my students and me throughout the years, whether it was through words of encouragement, financial donations, or offering to connect us with people in your networks. I want you to know that, whatever form it took, your support helped get Adama here. So from the bottom of my heart, thank you!
Now that Adama has finally made it to college, the exciting part of his journey begins and he would like to share it with you all! Adama and I are collaborating on a new newsletter called Living His College Dream and we invite you to subscribe today!
Adama's newsletter will allow you to follow along in real-time as he discovers the world beyond The Gambia and works towards fulfilling his college dream. You can expect heartwarming anecdotes like what it was like for him to fly in an airplane for the first time and his utter disbelief at seeing puppies sold for $5,000 at a local Tokyo petshop. The newsletter will also share his thoughtful observations on the differences between the African and Japanese cultures, as well as his insights on what it's like studying at Temple University Japan.
With as heavy as international and domestic news has been lately, this newsletter will deliver some guaranteed sunshine to your inbox once a month!
With all of that said, we just wanted to take a moment to share this wonderful news and acknowledge that a million small acts of kindness from countless people over nine years got us to this point. Adama and I will always be eternally grateful to each and everyone of you.
