Today, the Embassy of the Republic of The Gambia proudly announces their partnership with the Starling Sponsorship Program, an academic scholarship program founded by American millennial, Ashleigh DeLuca. Together, the embassy and the Starling Sponsorship Program are attempting to bring three Gambian students, twins Adama and Awa Jarju, and Penda Jallow, to America to attend St. Thomas Aquinas College in Sparkill, NY. These students come from an impoverished rural village in The Gambia and, despite all odds, they graduated from high school with the support of DeLuca’s Starling Sponsorship Program.

Ten years ago, Ashleigh DeLuca, founder of the Starling Sponsorship Program, took a gap year to work as a sixth grade English teacher in a small rural village in The Gambia, a Muslim majority country in West Africa.  She noticed almost immediately that there were certain students who worked so much harder than their peers because they understood the importance of an education. These select children would go home, go through their mandatory chores to help their family, and then work by candlelight on their mud-packed floors until late at night to finish their homework. These were the children excelling in the classroom and they were motivated by more than good grades. They understood that a good education was the only opportunity to propel themselves and their families out of the cycle of poverty into which they were born.