Creative Minds International Academy [CMIA] (www.creativemindsacademy.net) is a Jos, Nigeria based coeducational school. In 2007, Emmanuel Ande Ivorgba, the school’s founder, visited India as a participant in Project Happiness and interviewed the Dalai Lama. Upon his return to Nigeria, inspired by the visit and by the Mount Madonna School’s values education program, he founded CMIA.
Creative Minds International Academy is committed to facilitating values-based education, positive character development and creative self-expression. Emmanuel Ande Ivorgba, the school’s Founder and Director also serves as the global study circle coordinator for The Dalai Lama Foundation.
The school is committed to developing a quality educational environment based on the foundations of positive values and to instilling in young people a profound sense of ethics, peace and character, which are conditions for building an honorable and productive society. The educational curriculum provides young people with opportunities to discover and develop their inherent gifts, talents and abilities, and to help raise ethically responsible, self-disciplined and creative citizens capable of participation in a positive and sustainable society.
We cultivate and promote a social environment that encourages and celebrates individual initiative, creativity and responsibility. We provide our students with opportunities for broad intellectual and values-based education that develops their capacities and creative talents and enables them to grow as human beings and good global citizens in aesthetic and/or applied pursuits. Our goal is to become an educational institution of international standing and outlook, achieving excellence through scholarship, teaching, learning, research and service to our world.
We empower our students with tools to develop critical thinking processes necessary to investigate and interrelate important life issues that are inherent to their immediate surroundings and essential to the sustainability of mankind. International educators and friends are an important component of our school community. Through this, we are gradually working towards the integration of social, creative and intellectual development within the context of supportive human relationships.
The school, which operates now from temporary, rented facilities, has 552 students, 30 teachers, and a security officer. Current efforts are focused on raising funds for the purchase of land and construction of a permanent boarding school facility. When completed, Creative Minds International Academy will have these facilities:
- A twenty-classroom block that will comfortably accommodate 1500 students;
- Two single storey hostels for boys and girls;
- A guest house for international visitors, friends and partners;
- A well- equipped library and information technology center;
- A well- equipped science laboratory;
- Administrative building for offices, including hall for conferences, meetings and events;
- A sporting facility and recreational ground;
- A farm yard for the growing of vegetables and rearing of goats, chickens and pigs. This will serve as an additional source of income generation and provide food for the school community.
The total cost for this is estimated at [USD] $500,000.
About 90% of this amount will go into construction and building of the facility, while the remainder will go towards furnishings and maintenance.
The Dalai Lama Foundation is the Fiscal Sponsor for CMIA.
