Charlotte Organizers Open Ghanaian School After Years-Long Effort
AfroCareCLT still has work to do in Charlotte's Sister City of Kumasi
Charlotte-based volunteers and organizers were on hand in Kumasi, Ghana, on Tuesday to watch their years-long effort come to fruition with the grand opening of the Akyremade JHS School, a two-story middle school located in one of Charlotte’s Sister Cities.
Spearheaded by Justin Jones-Fosu, founder and chair of the Work Meaningful Foundation (WMF), the project has been carried out over the last three years by AfroCareCLT, a coalition of 10 Charlotte-based organizations with a passion for and/or roots in Ghana and specifically Kumasi.
Jones-Fosu conceived of the project after visiting his father’s home village in Ghana in 2019. He soon thereafter donated 90 dual desks and the resources needed for clean water access to the existing Akyremade Primary and JHS School just outside of Kumasi through his inclusionary workplace learning and development company Work. Meaningful.
Inspired by the direct impact of those donations, Jones-Fosu became motivated to do more, but he knew he needed help. That led him to co-found AfroCareCLT, which along with Work. Meaningful. and WMF comprises Charlotte-based groups including Charlotte Sister Cities, Eh’Vivi, Asanteman Association of Charlotte, South Academy of International Languages, Charlotte International Cabinet, Little Listeners, My Forking Life, and Springclean.
“Seeing the school completed today is a humbling reminder that the tortoise really does win the race — not because it’s the fastest but because it’s steady, faithful and committed to the finish,” Jones-Fosu told Queen City Nerve from Ghana on Tuesday.
“This journey has taught me that meaningful impact isn’t about speed — it’s about showing up, again and again, especially when no one is watching. To see this dream realized, just outside of Charlotte’s Sister City, is proof that purpose, when pursued with patience, can transform lives — including our own.”
Jones-Fosu joined us on the Nooze Hounds podcast in 2021 to discuss how his inclusion-centered work was pushing back against the effects of social isolation in the midst of the pandemic, why empathizing can be harder than “othering,” and how his upbringing in an immigrant Ghanaian family influenced his interest in the work he does today.
Read more: ‘The Inclusive Mindset’ Author Pushes Back Against Social Isolation (2021)
Construction on the school began in 2022 and the first floor was completed in 2024. Tuesday marked the full opening of the two-story facility for students — but the work at Akyremade isn’t done yet.
On Sept. 19, the day designated Kumasi Day by Mayor Vi Lyles in 2023, AfroCareCLT will host its third annual Cultural Gala with a goal to raise $30,000 to build a technology lab in the school. The annual gala will include an African dance performance, Ghanaian art auction, a multi-course Ghanaian dinner by Chef Awo Amenumey of Eh’Vivi and a full evening of dancing for all.
“My goal is to just bring Ghanaian food to the forefront of the culinary scene through culture,” Chef Awo told Queen City Nerve in 2023. “I just share my culture through food. That’s the purpose of what I do.”
Read more: Chef Awo Amenumey Introduces Charlotte to Ghanaian Cuisine with Eh’Vivi (2023)
Launched in 2022, Eh’Vivi hosts pop-ups and catering events throughout the Charlotte area. Based out of her home in Concord, Amenumey wants to eventually open a traditional restaurant.
Her goal has been to introduce the Charlotte area to Ghanaian cuisine, though her reach has recently grown as she appeared on Food Network’s Chopped in June. She’s hosting Eh’Vivi’s first public dinner of the year, Rooted | Rising, on July 19 in Concord.
Other AfroCareCLT board members who have helped lead the efforts in Kumasi include CT Anderson, founder of Springclean, a Charlotte-based nonprofit that repurposes textile materials into art, home decor and sustainable fashion while paying livable wages to folks in vulnerable populations.
Jerome Fleming, a board member with AfroCareCLT and the Charlotte-based 100 Gardens, where he oversees the organization’s aquaponics lab at the Innovation Barn in the Belmont neighborhood.
Fleming, who was in Kumasi for Tuesday’s opening, is working to establish a similar aquaponics program at the Akyremade Middle School in Kumasi, which organizers hope can serve as a model to be used more broadly in helping curb the existence of food deserts in the area.
Fleming told Queen City Nerve that each of his three visits to the school have deepened his connection to the community as he builds lasting relationships with the students there, something he never imagined doing as a child himself growing up in Kannapolis.
“When I was a kid, my cousins and I used to play in the garden pretending we were Captain Planet and the Planeteers,” he recalled. “In every episode, they did something — sometimes huge, sometimes small — but they always did something. That’s what this experience has felt like. From a box of crayons here to a building there — it’s all been done with one goal in mind: to help.
“And the kids … they feel like my nieces and nephews,” he continued. “They remind me that hope, belief and big dreams have to start somewhere. Maybe it’s a cartoon from the ’90s. Maybe it’s a 6’2” guy who gives high fives, can’t dance, but believes so deeply in the value of education that he flies halfway around the world just to say, ‘Hey.'”
Charlotte formally started its first Sister Cities partnership with Arequipa, Peru, in February 1962. Since then, the city’s network of Sister Cities partnerships has expanded to include Krefeld, Germany (1986); Baoding, China (1987); Voronezh, Russia (1991); Limoges, France (1992); Wrocław, Poland (1993); and Kumasi, Ghana (1995).
Pronounced koo-MAH-see, Kumasi was founded in 1820 by King Osei Tutu and is now the second largest city in Ghana, capital of the Ashanti region. With a population of approximately 1.5 million people, the Kumasi economy is based on agriculture, textiles, manufacturing and the mining of timber, gold and diamonds, as well as cocoa.
The 2025 third annual AfroCareCLT Cultural Gala will take place at Project 658 Events and Catering, 3646 Central Ave., on Sept. 19 from 6-20 p.m. Tickets are available.
