The Akenten Appiah-Menka University of Skills Training and Entrepreneurial Development (AAMUSTED) Alumni Association is raising funds to support brilliant but needy students of the University. That was to contribute to the well-being of its Alma Mater and make the association relevant and attractive to the tens of thousands of AAMUSTED students.
The establishment of the Brilliant but Needy Fund was a major fallout of the 2023 Annual General Meeting of the Alumni Association on December 7, 2023, at the Kumasi Campus of the University.
Setting up the Fund was a spontaneous decision by members of the Association, who participated in discussing the thought-provoking issues raised by Prof. Isaac Boateng, the Ag. Director of the Institute of Professional Teacher Development and Life-long Learning at AAMUSTED and Main Speaker on the theme for the Alumni General Meeting – ‘Towards the Growth of a New University: The Role of the Alumni’.
Prof. Boateng’s explanation of one of the issues – Better Stakeholder Experience – in which he drew attention to the need for AAMUSTED to enhance its stakeholder experience to imbue in the Alumni and their families love for the University, triggered the over 150 members at the meeting physically and others who joined in via Zoom to call for the establishment of the Fund.
Members at the AGM readily contributed some amount as seed money for the Fund and a Mobile Money (MoMo) Number – 0244174471- was provided for all members to contribute their widow’s mite.
The Vice-President of the Alumni Association, Mrs. Millicent Pimpong, announced that the Executives of the Association would work out the details of the Fund and bring out necessary modalities for its disbursement once enough money comes into the Fund.
She encouraged members to make generous contributions to the Fund, explaining that some students were facing dire financial constraints but were keeping it under wraps and suffering daily.
‘An intervention by the Alumni Association could go a long way to ease the challenges of the affected students and potentially commit them to become faithful members of the Alumni Association,’ she said.
Earlier, the Vice Chancellor of AAMUSTED, Prof. Frederick Kwaku Sarfo, who attended the Meeting as a Special Guest of Honour, re-echoed the unwavering support of his Management for the Alumni Association.
He said the Management had strategically brought the Alumni and its related issues under the University’s Directorate of Research, International Programmes and Institutional Advancement (DRIPIA) and appointed an Assistant Registrar to be responsible for the Office.
He also said the Management was allocating furnished offices on campus to the Alumni Association to facilitate its efficient operations. That, he said, showed the high premium that the Management of the University places on the Alumni.
He also gave a list of achievements his administration has chalked over the last three years that he has been at the helm of affairs, encouraging the Alumni to go all out to seek support for the development of AAMUSTED.
The Association presented Certificates of Service to five people who led the Association in Interim capacities from August 2020 to July 2022 before the election of the substantive leaders.
They were Mr. Abraham Attoh, Interim President; Miss Millicent Pimpong, Interim Vice President; Miss Gertrude Adutwum, Interim Secretary; and Mr. John Murphy, Interim Organising Secretary. Mr. Dacosta Mensah was also honoured for his role as the first Coordinator of the Alumni Association when the Kumasi Campus of AAMUSTED was part of the University of Education Winneba (UEW).
The Ag. Director of DRIPIA, Prof. Ebenezar Bonyah, was the Chairman for the opening session of the Meeting.
