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Give to the Yale Young African Scholars Fund
By making a gift to Yale Young African Scholars (YYAS), you are supporting high achieving, low-income high school students to attend a program that expands students minds by exploring various fields of study and career paths through lectures and seminars, learning about how to access competitive higher education opportunities with sessions from universities across the globe, and working with a network of volunteer mentors from the Yale community and beyond.
YYAS is a non-profit program and in 2024 we plan to offer a residential program once again for a group of over 120 students and in addition to a conference educators from the African region in Harare, Zimbabwe. Additionally, we will continue to offer an online program with similar content for hundreds of students. Given the costs associated with internet access across Africa, we strive to work with telecommunications companies to cover data bundles so students can access the online program, but this is currently not guaranteed for all students who demonstrate financial need across the more than 35 countries represented annually.
To make the program as accessible as possible, the YYAS Residential Summit is a tuition free program, with all students’ accommodation and food covered by YYAS during the program. However, the total residential cost per student to participate in YYAS for summer 2024 can range from $1,500 to $2,000 USD per student given the increasingly high cost of air travel within Africa. Through outside support, we plan to offer travel scholarships for high achieving, low income students to access the residential program and learn in a diverse, pan-African setting.
We hope to gain generous outside support from donors to provide necessary travel support for high achieving, low income students to access our programming and we appreciate any contribution to increase access to high quality educational opportunities for hundreds of high achieving, low income students from dozens of countries across Africa. You may make a general gift towards covering the program costs for one or several students or you may choose where your contribution will make an impact, such as toward student travel or other necessities.
You may make your gift by clicking here. We sincerely thank you for considering supporting the Yale Young African Scholars program!
Mentor YYAS Alumni
Each year we recruit dozens of volunteer mentors from the Yale community and beyond (including YYAS alumni studying abroad at international universities). In general, mentors will help our young alumni navigate the university application process (including pre-university programs such as African Leadership Academy) over a period of three to five (3-5) months (generally from September to January). All mentors will be assigned to a small group of YYAS alumni (3-4 mentees total) and will be expected to communicate with each one at least once every two (2) weeks on various aspects of university readiness. Given the geographic scope of the program, the mentorship program takes place entirely online. The YYAS staff will periodically share documents, resources, and offer training and one-on-one support throughout the program.
We expect mentors to follow through with their support of mentees until they submit their university applications. Once mentors are assigned mentees, the YYAS team will send you a detailed Mentorship Guide with checklists, dates, and more information. YYAS staff will check in periodically and send regular email reminders to make sure you and your mentees are on track. Please note each students’ application timeline will likely be different since application deadlines vary. Therefore, it is important to help each student establish their own timeline to complete various aspects of the application.
At a minimum, mentors will be expected to support students in the following areas as deemed necessary:
- Research universities to apply to, considering cost and financial aid
- Revision of application essays
- Draft application components, such as an extracurricular activities list
You can learn more about the mentorship program by viewing the Mentor Prospectus.
To express interest in becoming a mentor for the 2024-25 program, please complete this interest form.
Other Ways to Give
As previously mentioned, a majority of the direct cost associated with student participation in our online or residential programming is internet data and airfare. While we will continue our outreach to various internet service providers and airlines across the African continent, we are grateful for any introductions to individuals or organizations who can help minimize these costs for students in these areas.