BY DAYO ADESULU
An orphan who benefited from university degree sponsorship by Greensprings International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma students has graduated with a first-class in Economics from Anambra State University. The gentleman named Precious Emmanuel who is among the 2021 graduating set of the university expressed his appreciations via a video to the students, thanking them for supporting him financially throughout his stay at the university.
“I want to use this opportunity to appreciate Greensprings School, especially the IB Diploma students of the school for supporting me through school. It was a time of hopelessness for me, but they showed up. I appreciate what they did for me because God moved through them. And for making me happy and giving me hope about the future, I pray that God will continue to bless them,” he said.
Celebrating Emmanuel’s brilliant academic performance, the Wider Curriculum Principal of Greensprings School, Mrs Jennifer Sunkanmi-Qaazzeem, said the school’s community is delighted to hear about his achievement, stating that Emmanuel is one among several undergraduate students that the IB Diploma are supporting financially through school.
“It gives us great joy to hear that Precious Emmanuel graduated with a first-class degree! For our IB Diploma students, it feels like a pleasant reward for their Creativity, Activity, Service (CAS) project, under which the sponsorship was made. The decision by the IB students to provide financial support for undergraduate students started over a decade ago, and since then, they have successfully sponsored a good number of students in private and public universities,” she declared.
“These undergraduates,” she continued, “are usually students in dire need of financial support to get an education, and in the case of Emmanuel, he is an orphan who didn’t have anyone to financially support him to pursue his dream of studying Economics. Hence, our IB diploma students took over his sponsorship as part of their community service programme,”
When asked how the IB Diploma students got the fund used for the sponsorship, Mrs Sunkanmi-Qaazzeem said they worked for the money and saved it to an account set up by the school.
“The fund used for the sponsorship is not from the pocket money of the students. They have been trained in entrepreneurship and fundraising, so they worked to generate the fund and seek out donors within the school’s community. Some of the things they do to get money include making and selling snacks and gift packs, organizing movie nights, and getting involved in jumbo sales. They also earn income by providing car wash services, and during school’s events, they seek donations toward their community service projects, and all income realized from donations and creative crafts of the students are put into a bank account set up for students’ charity projects.” she revealed.
“The IB Diploma charity project is continuous and a requirement for every student that passes through the IB Diploma programme, because it teaches them about humanity and helps them to be better prepared for university life, knowing that there are people out there that may not be as privilege as they are; and they must learn to serve one another in love,” she concluded.
The Greensprings IB Diploma Programme is a two-year sixth-form programme designed to prepare secondary school graduates for life in tertiary institutions. Community services such as catering to the needy are a mandatory core component of the programme. Students are expected to have a minimum of five credits in their O’ Levels (GCSEs, IGCSEs or WASSCE), including English Language and Mathematics to be considered for admission into the programme.
