Dreaming Big and Giving Back

At a Middle School assembly on a Monday morning, Chioma Azi, a 1996 graduate of Greene Street Friends School, told her story of helping young people in Uganda. She spoke about her own Greene Street experience, her work in immigration law, and her involvement in supporting the Upper Nile Institute for Appropriate Technology (UNIFAT), a school in Gulu, Uganda founded by her grandmother, Abitimo Odongkara. When UNIFAT began in 1985, Uganda was in the midst of a violent civil war. The country is now more peaceful and UNIFAT, through its teachings of peace and respect for others, helps in the healing of the war-ravaged northern region of the country.

Chioma said that at Greene Street she learned to “dream big,” that she could do anything to which she put her mind. After attending Greene Street, Chioma went on to the Springside School, the University of Pittsburgh and Duquesne University law school. She lives in Germantown, where she grew up, and maintains her own legal practice, specializing in immigration law. Drawing on her own experience, she urged students wondering about the coming social and academic expectations of high school to “just be themselves” to teachers and peers alike.

In her nine years at Greene Street, from Kindergarten through Grade 8, the School’s values became deeply instilled, though she said did not fully realize it when she was in high school or even college. Over time she came to understand that she wants to give back to others and that the best way for her to do that is to further the pioneering work of her grandmother. Chioma serves as the secretary of the Friends of UNIFAT, a non-profit organization that supports the school by building awareness and fundraising. She showed photos of UNIFAT, which is similar to Greene Street in that it is a private school in a populous area that promotes peace and serves children from Pre-Kindergarten through Grade 8.

What began with five orphans and a teacher under a tree is now a thriving school of 1,400 students, more than five times the size of Greene Street Friends. One slide showed hundreds of students sitting at an outside assembly under what is thought to be the original tree. While UNIFAT has chalkboards instead of SmartBoards, there is a computer lab with Internet access where students can study and Skype. Chioma described the students as “eager to learn.”

At the end of the presentation, Middle School students wanted to know who attends UNIFAT. Chioma explained that like Greene Street, the school is diverse, with students from several nearby countries, including Sudan and Rwanda, represented. Admission there is open to any children who want to apply. One Greene Street student spoke of hearing about poverty in Africa and asked how they could have computers in a country with limited resources. Chioma explained that just like in the US, there are some places where people live in large houses and some places where people have very little.

Associate Head of School, Wilson Felter was excited to see the students’ response to the presentation. "Having alumni return to Greene Street to tell their stories has immeasurable impact on our students,” he said. “When adolescents meet adults in whom they see a little piece of themselves, it is motivational and potentially transformative. When Chioma said "follow your dreams and think big," they were listening, especially when she backed it up by saying the school she is working with in Africa started with a handful of pupils under a tree, and is now a thriving school of 1,400."