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3.3% of U.S. study abroad students went to Africa last year.
Our CEO, Phil Agbeko, sat in a room of 50 people at The Forum on Education Abroad Annual Conference in Nashville, a conference of 1,000+ professionals, where that number was spoken out loud.
That stat comes from the IIE Open Doors Report, cited in the one session on Africa he could physically attend. An encouraging session. Not sure if there were others dedicated to Africa across the full program.
The conference was large enough. The conversation about Africa within it wasn’t, and that’s the distinction that matters. A field of 1,000+ professionals spending three days on justice, sustainability, and global responsibility, while the continent with the world’s youngest population and a median age of 18, the continent that will produce the next global workforce remains at the margins of the dialogue. That gap belongs to all of us to close.
So we do what we always do: come back here and keep sounding the alarm. A session reaches 50 people. This post reaches further!
Why not Africa?
If you were in Nashville and we didn’t get the chance to connect, or if you want to explore what genuine Africa-focused programming looks like in practice, reach out. Let’s have that conversation.