Open Dreams Educational NGO

Open Dreams is an educational nonprofit that aims to help high achieving students from Cameroon and South Africa access and obtain scholarships to pursue higher education. Founded in 2014, Open Dreams operates from Bamenda, Cameroon where we run a 3-month Open Dreams Summer Academy. During this time, top selected students study and prepare for college preparatory tests, learn about computers and the internet, explore leadership, global citizenship, and entrepreneurship, and participate in a community service project. The highest performing and committed students are then chosen to be Open Dreams Scholars and paired with an international Mentor to help them compete and apply for international scholarships to top Universities worldwide. Inspired by the life story of one of our three founders - Blaise Buma - Open Dreams believes that access to education really does change lives. Blaise himself, with the help of an amazing American mentor he met in Cameroon, was able to apply to and receive three full scholarships to top universities in the U.S. He ultimately went to Washington and Lee University in Virginia on a full ride and then went on to London School of Economics, where he met his other co-founders Cristina Bernardo and Hans Kullberg. Now a recent Schwarzman Scholar, Blaise currently works for a venture capitol firm in Mali and will be attending Harvard Business School in the Fall. After helping his sister receive a full scholarship to McGill University in Canada, Blaise went on to found Open Dreams with Cristina and Hans to help other extremely bright students access scholarships to attend top universities in Africa, Canada, US, Europe and beyond. We are proud to announce that this year alone 8 of our scholars have received full MasterCard Scholarships to attend McGill University, UBC, University of Toronto, University of Edinburgh (2), African Leadership University (ALU), and University of Botswana (2). We are proud partners of ALA and the HALI Network.