Naa Kuorkor Afutu picks 2021-2022 Award

“When I finally get called to the Bar, I pledge to freely put my services as a Lawyer at the disposal of the Webb of Excellence Welfare Fund so that, together, we can assist more young, female girls of Ada Senior High School to live their dream.”

 – Naa Kuorkor Afutu

 

“I FEEL greatly honoured to be selected to receive the 2021-2022 edition of this very special award, which was instituted in 2015 by Miss Eleanor Louise Webb, a Canadian from St John’s Newfoundland, to improve the lives to female students of Ada Senior High School – a place she where taught, under the Canadian Universities Services Overseas (CUSO) program, some 52 years ago.

“When I finally get called to the Bar, I pledge to freely put my services as a Lawyer at the disposal of the Webb of Excellence Welfare Fund, so that, together we can assist more young, female girls of Ada Senior High School to live their dream”.

These were the enchanting words of young, brilliant Naa Kuorkor Afutu, a first-year law student of the University of Professional Studies, Accra, (UPSA) on the sunny afternoon of Monday, May 3, 2022, soon after receiving her award as winner of the 2021-2022 Webb of Excellence Tertiary Award at a brief but colourful ceremony at the SSNIT Guest House in Accra.

To grab the award, Naa Kuorkor obtained aggregate 9 in the 2021 West Africa Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) to emerge the best female student of Ada Senior High School and, consequently, gained admission to the UPSA to study law.

And in line with the terms of the Award, she received a cheque for GHc4,000 (Four Thousand Ghana Cedis) to cover her Academic User Fee and Residential Fee for the first year.

In subsequent years at the University, the Fund will support Naa Kuorkor Afutu with a graduated sum of money provided she obtains a B AVERAGE GRADING or HIGHER at the end of every year in the course she is pursuing.

Presenting the award, the chairman of the Board of Administrators of the Fund, Dr Gabriel Ofoe Canacoo, noted with pride that “since the institution of the award, the performance of female students of Ada Senior High in the WASSCE has improved in leaps and bounds” and he lauded the tutors for doing a great job.

The chairman also observed that previous winners of the Tertiary Award – Juliet Annang and Nyemingor Korkor Okai, who are both studying Chemistry and are, currently, in their third year at the University of Ghana, as well as Esther Pamela Partey, currently in her second year as a Pharmacy student at the University of Cape Coast – have continued to excel year in, year out, in their various fields of study and he challenged the current winner of the award to also live up to expectation.

In her acceptance speech, Naa Kuorkor accepted the challenge to live up to the high standards set by her predecessor and noted that the institution of the award by Miss Webb has been a blessing to female graduates of Ada Senior High and expressed her profound gratitude to her for her passion and dedication.

Naa Kuorkor also thanked the headmaster, tutors and management of Ada Senior High for the impartation of knowledge, the staff of her JHS for their efforts in helping her secure Ada Senior High, her parents for love and care and also the many Canadians, groups and societies, who continue to support Miss Webb’s dream.

The Headmaster of Ada Senior High School, Mr Kojo Ayibor, on his part, congratulated Miss Webb for deciding to invest a seed money of 3,000 Canadian dollars, bequeathed to her by her late auntie, into an educational fund to motivate female students of Ada Senior High, where she taught some 52 years ago.

“This is really an amazing story by any standard. She could have decided to use that money for anything else; but to choose education and to choose Ada Senior High of all the schools she had a stint with in Africa, clearly demonstrates not only her love for the girl-child and the good people of Ghana, but also her firm belief in the time-tested maxim of the great Kyegyir Aggrey of blessed memory that: ‘if you educate a man, you educate an individual, but if you educate a woman, you educate a nation.’”

Mr Ayibor urged other former tutors as well as former students of the school to follow the trail blazed by Miss Webb with the view to making Ada Senior High School one of the best in the country.