Four beneficiaries of the SAVE THE FROGS! Ghana Young Scholars Program (YSP) have made it to the honor rolls of their respective schools for excellent academic laurels. This includes a trail blazing record by Ernest Armah, a deaf and mute lad, who has been under scholarship since 2016. He scored A’s in all subjects and placed first position in all but one. According to the headmaster of Ernest’s school, such academic record is unprecedented and seems unbreakable.

Ernest Armah’s report card

One of the scholars (Ellen Assuah of T.I Ahmadiyya SHS) has won a place on her school’s team for National Mathematics and Science Quiz Competition, a keenly contested national quiz competition live telecast that is watched by over 5 million Ghanaians. Another scholar, Tano Meshack of Sefwi Wiawso SHS has also been called up to represent her school at the brainy National Inter–schools Debaters Competition.

Finally, Charity Nyarko (who made history last year in the West African regional examinations with A1 in Mathematics), has picked up application forms for the University of Ghana, the country’s premier university. Charity wants to study Political Science and would be the first female graduate of her village. Without the intervention of SAVE THE FROGS! Ghana, like most of her peers, she would have been a school dropout and a teenage mother.

SAVE THE FROGS! Ghana launched the Young Scholars Program in 2016 to improve the resources of less-endowed schools and to provide scholarships to academically gifted but economically disadvantaged children. The program has supported the cost of tuition, books, travel, and (in some cases) basic boarding school requirements for beneficiaries. Aside from enabling the future aspirations of the youngsters, such interventions have so far been a powerful tool in rallying local support for the protection of the critically endangered Giant Squeaker Frog and its last remaining Sui Forest habitat.