Despite the often youthful mistake of getting pregnant, for instance, at an unprepared age of 15 or 16, these students are being told not to look at themselves as failures but as individuals who can turn their lives around and in turn change the world for the better.
That is why the principal and genius behind the Catherine Ferguson Academy for Young Women, Asenath Andrews, armed with three decades of teaching in the classroom, told me this week that she is creating “global girls,” something that is very evident as six of her students prepare to spend more than two weeks in Soweto, South Africa to take part in the coming Youth Entrepreneurship Conference where they will learn about entrepreneurship, green energy and solar panels, among other things.
In turn, the Detroit delegation will teach their 60 counterpart students from more than four different African nations lessons in urban farming and other agricultural techniques. They will also design and build a community garden and greenhouse in Soweto as part of their community service project.
Soweto is a significant place of pilgrimage for anyone concerned about the state of Black children in today’s complex world and what the future holds for them.
It was in Soweto June 16, 1976 when more than 700 Black South African students were murdered in cold blood in broad daylight during the apartheid era for the audacity to demand a meaningful education.
Since then the world, shamed by what was allowed to happen to Black South Africans under apartheid, has used June 16 as the “Day of the African Child” to commemorate the Soweto massacre.
The Catherine Ferguson students are stepping into history and they deserve it because the school is rapidly becoming a model where the impossible is made possible. Talking to the students you will experience the transformative power of change as Mahatma Ghandi, who once lived in South Africa where he developed some of his ideas, famously said, “Be the change you want to see.”
Going to South Africa, Andrews said, could not have come at a better time.
Why?
Because the students who are leaving July 29 are taking urban gardening to the center of global agriculture at a time when hunger is haunting the world’s poorest and the economically disadvantaged.
Whether it is in Detroit, Soweto in South Africa, Dakar in Senegal or Halifax in Canada, all children are bound by the same need for nutrition and an empowering and quality education.
“Never before have we had the opportunity to travel to another continent. We are really excited about this trip and what it means for the students,” Andrews said. “Now I think they (students) need to begin to think about setting up their own international consulting firm on growing food.”
With international exposure, Andrews said the students are in a better position to build their own businesses in a marketplace where their customers are beyond their own environments.
Tiffiini Baldwin, 18, is ready for the trip. Already she had designed her own business cards. Andrews said the students are all encouraged to have their cards with them.
When I asked Baldwin for her number to invite her and some of her fellow students on my television program to talk about their upcoming trip, she flashed her card and on it was written, “Urban Agriculture Ambassador” with the name, address and location of the school and her contact number.
I was not only impressed but was stunned at how these students are being trained without having the so-called designations of the leading business schools in the nation. Their smartness and wit in understanding the approach to use in asserting themselves in the marketplace is admirable. I did not recall coming across college students who are carrying their own business cards before completing school.
At Catherine Ferguson, the students are taught to create their own industries instead of looking for an industry to work for.
“I am ready to go out and meet new people and learn,” Baldwin said. “I came to the school (in 2008) a little after a month when I gave birth to my daughter.”
Baldwin said the school is enabling her to use urban farming to help in the community.
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