Kwame Sarfo-Mensah
IDTALK4ED LIVE EPISODE #160 - "An Educational Leader with No Creative Bounds" (Dr. Mary Ashun)
In this episode, I had the honor of welcoming Dr. Mary Ashun to the podcast to talk about her early childhood, life as a school leader, her thoughts on building a sustainable pipeline for African teachers, the inspiration behind her creative endeavors, embracing her identity as a Ghanaian-Canadian, and so much more! To learn more about Dr. Mary's work, you can visit her website at maryashun.com or follow her on Twitter (@ashundr) and LinkedIn.
BIO:
A transformational leader with over 30 years experience in the Education, Scientific Research, Publishing and Non-Profit Sectors, Dr. Mary Ashun's pivot for the last 20 years has been on education design and it’s necessary partnerships with technology and community.
Her key projects have involved the design of pan-African and international strategies for increased literacy; effective teaching; targeted training and mentoring of individuals to deliver collaborative projects for educational success.
Providing affordable education is a passion of Dr. Mary's. As a result of this, she collaborated with a team of like-minded people to build a school in West Africa (His Majesty's Christian School), that would build upon this vision. Based in Asamankese (so that the literacy development project could be used as a platform), this school is modeling best practice in education delivery in rural sub-saharan Africa.
Dr. Mary is currently serving as the Chief Executive Officer of the OSE (Office Of Strategy Execution) of Ghana International School in Accra, Ghana. In January 2013, Dr. Mary co-organized TEDxSixteenMileCreek under the topic "RE-Imagine; videos are available on YouTube. She conceived the idea for TIME Conference - a gathering of educators in Accra, Ghana, the Visiting International Educator Program - the hosting of international educators at GIS for capacity building in the area of International Mindedness and arTRyx, the multidimensional display of student creativity in the Arts. She has written and had performed, 3 musicals: Prince of Egypt: A GIS Adaptation, Dancing Queen: A tribute to ABBA & Tales From Motown: A tribute to Motown Records.
Dr. Mary writes for various audiences and her books are available on Amazon under my official name (Mary Ashun), and two pseudonyms - Asabea Ashun and Abena Apea. She created a book show for Rogers TV Mississauga called Book 'Em TV which was aired from September 2011 - February 2012.
Her first serious novel, "Tuesday's Child was a Quarter finalist in the 2010 Amazon/Penguin Writing Contest and her second novel - Mistress Of The Game- was a Quarterfinalist in the 2011 Amazon/Penguin Writing Contest. York University's HUMA1970 uses Tuesday's Child in their 'World's of Childhood' Class.
Dr. Mary intends to leave this world a better place for our children....
LINKS:
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/identitytalk4educatorslive/
Apple Podcasts - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/identity-talk-4-educators-live/id1509599570
Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/23k0HRkXxi1OJSahtqS7xO
Google Podcasts - https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy8xMDNjZGQ2Yy9wb2RjYXN0L3Jzcw?sa=X&ved=0CAMQ4aUDahcKEwiA6NSi6rT1AhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQAQ&hl=en