Encouraging the participation of Australian-African students in higher education through community outreach initiatives

This paper briefly discusses the rationale and outcomes of the Aim Higher Summit, a community outreach initiative that seeks to inspire young people from Sub-Saharan African (SSA) backgrounds living in Western Australia to participate and excel in higher education. The event follows a recent community consultation with SSA high school students and their parents in Perth. The Aim Higher Summit is one component of a two-prong approach devised to address revelations from the consultative exercise that SSA students in Perth high schools were experiencing challenges in their academic pursuits and not making informed choices about their post-high school educational pathways. Highlights of the 2016 event, which brought together successful SSA professionals to inspire young people of African descent through narratives of their life journeys, are shared in this paper.