Vision
To empower and positively transform Africans through education and faith.
About
Fostering development, dignified families, and personhood through education and faith in Africa.
The African Orthodox Academics (AOA) is a registered non-profit, community-based organisation with two aims: to empower and equip disadvantaged Africans by funding their general education at the Primary, Secondary, High School, College, and University levels, and to advance Orthodox theological education and research in Africa through scholarships and research.
AOA funds pupils and students who would otherwise be unable to access education, improving their personal, family, community, and church lives in Africa. Further, it creates spaces for Orthodox Christians and theologians, or those interested in Eastern and Oriental Christianities, to learn and theologise about this ancient faith in its African context.
Mission
We will actively shape the future of the African continent and of Orthodox Christians by providing quality education and empowerment, enabling them to live dignified lives and become role models who inspire new generations.
Values
Nine commitments
- GrowthWe believe in growing and uplifting African children in need through education.
- InspirationWe seek to inspire others to transform their lives and to learn about Orthodox theology.
- Self-DeterminationWe identify gifted students and enable them to succeed in their own right.
- Ethical CharacterWe cultivate ethical character in our students.
- Dignified LivingWe are a catalyst for ending poverty and fostering dignified lives for our students and their families.
- LeadershipWe seek to identify future African Orthodox leaders and expose them to leadership excellence.
- PartnershipWe seek like-minded partners as we forge new transformative relationships.
- IndependenceTransform the lives of Orthodox clergy and parishes through ending dependencies in African Orthodox parishes.
- MentorshipEncourage holistic living and visionary leadership in AOA recipients.
Context
Why this work exists
The cost of a place
Contemporary models of education differ from those of traditional African society. Due to global trends of educational advancement that demand ever-increasing school fees, most African families continue to live in abject poverty. Most African governments are unable to offer free education, and where they claim to do so, public education is so low-quality that graduates of such schools cannot even read or do simple arithmetic, even after elementary school, and for some even after high school. The primary obstacle to better education in Africa therefore is cost, and AOA has recognised this and seeks to address it.
What poverty costs a family
It is often the case that many minorities, including the Orthodox Christians of Africa, have limited educational opportunities due to a lack of school fees, which subjects their families to generational poverty. Such abject poverty has forced some into drug and substance abuse, thug lifestyles, conmanship, gambling addictions, and even prostitution as they seek to forget their painful lives or simply survive the best way they know how. Some families enter the poverty cycle after selling their properties or the farm animals they rely on to educate their children, and sometimes that is not even enough. A number of Africans, trying to mitigate the challenges of their lives, have also fallen prey to neo-slavery through promises of finding jobs abroad, some losing their lives, dignity, and health in the process.
And what it costs a church
Such poverty of the mind and of families translates into poverty within the Orthodox churches in Africa, leaving the clergy and faithful of most Orthodox parishes vulnerable and unable to run their churches financially or to offer socially transformative programmes. Some Orthodox believers leave the church for other religions and Christian denominations as they seek greener pastures and better livelihoods, which the African Orthodox Church does not offer. Orthodox clergy seeking to offer comfort to their financially struggling believers have also been led to emulate Protestant models of the unethical prosperity gospel, as they seek to entice and keep their faithful who have lost hope.
Cost remains the greatest barrier to education in Africa.
Where AOA starts
African Orthodox Academics seeks to assist needy students from low-income families, as cost remains the greatest barrier to education in Africa. Through education, AOA seeks to transform the lives of the poorest in African societies and Orthodox communities by educating their children and helping unburden their families. Through education, AOA recipients will secure a fighting chance in the dwindling employment and business markets, thereby transforming them, their families, communities, and churches.