A team of four ALA students have been selected to take part in the Global Alliance of Leading Edge Schools for Sustainability (GALESS) TiltShift Challenge, making African Leadership Academy the only school in Africa to qualify for the competition.
Audreen Rutendo Murewa ’21 from Zimbabwe, Zyonnah Wuraoluwa Isiguzo ’21 from Nigeria, Varlee Fofana ’20 from Liberia and Mahmoud Wael Attia Ali Elawady ’20 from Egypt are the diverse group of ALA students going up against 31 other schools to participate in this year’s TiltShift Challenge: Med-Call.
“As someone who believes in the powerful impact of research on both individuals and nations flourishing, I was so excited after knowing that I got accepted,” says Mahmoud, “My excitement exceeded especially after knowing that I will be among a team that represents the entire continent,” he continues.
This international convention brings together top secondary and college preparatory schools from around the world which share a common commitment to excellence and youth leadership development for global good.
Teams collectively contribute towards solving global issues through scientific and social sciences research, evidence-based practice and ethical thinking.
Varlee, a second-year student at ALA, says that being in the competition provides an opportunity to gain hands-on global research experience. “As a social science discipline, I look forward to diving in more social research to understand how issues affect our societies. This competition seems ideal to give me that first-hand experience that would be integral to my post-high school research journey,” says Varlee.
Each school will collaborate and submit a research paper addressing two topics related to healthcare for the span of seven months (1 September, 2021 to 31 March, 2022).
Audreen says that she aspires to go to medical school and become a doctor, “Studying Covid-19 from various angles will bring me great insight. It will generate ideas about medicine and the different ethics, and external factors that matter in terms of patients and patents.”
This year’s theme, COVID-19, presented two topics for research presentation:
- Is the Covid-19 patient more important than the non-Covid-19 patient?
- Releasing patents: Will it save millions of lives or will it kill or destroy the incentive to stop new Covid-19 variants?
“In all honesty, I was stupefied by the news. I couldn’t believe the huge opportunity I was bestowed upon by the AL for Health department,” shares Zyonnah, “I hope to have a more in-depth knowledge about the difference between the health sectors of the world.”
GALESS participants are adjudicated by an international panel of professionals, dedicated to different research areas. The competition partners with global organisations to coach students on specialised research areas and students gain access to a network of international keynote speakers for sustainability programmes and events.
WATCH the ALA’s GALESS submission here: https://www.galess.org/appl/activityview.php and remember to share a shout out to the team as they complete their research projects on our social media pages!
