Media Center – INDIE Education Initiative

INDIE Education Initiative

For Immediate Release
June 13, 2017

Formation of a New California Non-profit Public-benefit Corporation for the Advancement of Education

This press release is to announce the formation of a California non-profit public-benefit corporation for the advancement of education, named “INDIE Education Initiative (INDIE Ed I).” The mission of INDIE Ed I is to help foster a cooperative educational environment worldwide that empowers learners, develops their potential, and cultivates their character.

The work of this new organization will be geared toward promoting lifelong learning and enhancing the quality of teaching and learning in underserved communities around the globe. Using a question-driven educational model, INDIE Ed I will provide support services to students, teachers, educational leaders, and to people who are not enrolled in formal institutions of learning but who desire instruction. Through its programs and publications, the INDIE Ed I will foster conscientious learners who will consciously choose to value the inherent dignity of all lives over disregard for oneself and others, understanding over rote memorialization and shallow learning, the path of inner transformation over egoistic self-interest, love over hate, harmony over division, and positive peace over war and injustice.

INDIE Ed I intends to utilize local resources and allow local context to determine the intervention that it introduces in each community. INDIE Ed I will work with local school leaders to understand and develop solutions to problems within their schools. Because local knowledge and expertise will form an integral part of the INDIE Ed I approach, the model can help people in underserved communities harness the power of education in a way that is culturally appropriate and most natural to them.

One key distinguishing element of the INDIE Ed I model is the philosophy and values that serve as an inspiration for its work. The organization’s philosophy and values are embodied in its “What is the point?” Professional Development workshop. The workshop, “What is the point?”, helps learners acquire a foundational and intuitive understanding of the purpose of education and learning. This workshop empowers participants to take ownership of their education and assist them to transcend their feeling of disempowerment.

Another unique aspect of its program offerings is the “Students’ Initiatives.” This program seeks to help learners develop the desire to live contributive lives. With this program, learners would initiate their own projects, collaborate with other students or members of their community, apply for a project grant, and, when successful, implement their ideas with some support from the INDIE Ed I project team. Another program, “Legacy Project,” is about helping educational leaders make the impact they desire to make in their schools or school districts. Educational leaders would have the opportunity to apply for this grant and the support services associated with it to help them execute projects aimed at transforming something in their school.

The organization officially launched its work on June 13, 2017. Our President/CEO, Prince Paa-Kwesi Heto, who himself went to school under trees and was taught by teachers who were not professionally trained as a child, on that day described the work of INDIE Ed I as a humble quest by ordinary people to lit the light of actionable hope in the lives of many people in underserved communities.