Brooklyn teacher to bring Brownsville students to Ghana

August 21, 2024 Brooklyn Eagle Staff

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BROWNSVILLE — 14 STUDENTS FROM Brownsville’s Frederick Douglass Academy VII are set to travel to Ghana with English teacher Bijoun Eric Jordan and four chaperones this month, reports Chalkbeat, after fundraising the money for the trip through a car wash, an art auction, a 5k run and merch sales. The high schoolers will spend ten days in and around Ghana’s capital of Accra visiting Ghanaian museums, historical sites and schools, as well as participating in cultural activities like receiving traditional names, mural-painting at an arts festival and creating music at an Afrobeats studio. Jordan, a 17-year teacher at Douglass, is the organizer of the school’s Brownsville Abroad club, which focuses on learning about the world through travel. He says that the Ghana trip has deep significance to the students going, who are all of African descent and who plan to explore both the joy of their heritage and the painful legacy of the trans-Atlantic slave trade.

“[W]e are following our roots back to where they lead us. For anyone who hasn’t heard of the Ghanaian principle of ‘sankofa,’ this is it! It means ‘go back and get it,’ or that by going and exploring our heritage, we receive knowledge that will guide us forward,” Jordan told Chalkbeat.

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