Some firsts feel significant before they even begin. On May 16, 2026, 187 Aspire alumni from across the world logged on for something that had never happened before: the inaugural event of the SIMA Film Club, the first ever film club at Aspire Institute.
For the volunteer team that spent weeks preparing for it, the moment carried real weight. “Hosting the very first session felt like a huge responsibility,” said Melissa Okeke, the club’s leader and ELP Program Assistant Volunteer based in Ecuador. “But it also felt like a huge opportunity to bring visibility and awareness to important issues through an interactive, community-driven format. It was exciting in the truest sense.”
A New Kind of Community Space
The SIMA Film Club was born out of a partnership between Aspire Institute and SIMA Academy, a global award-winning streaming platform that uses short documentary film to build critical thinking, empathy, and civic engagement. The idea is straightforward: screen a film, sit with it, talk about it, and let that conversation lead somewhere.
Each session follows a monthly cycle. The community picks a theme, selects a documentary, watches it together, reflects, and takes action. Members who complete one community initiative or attend four screening events become eligible for the SIMA Changemaker Award.
Behind the first event was a volunteer team that spanned four countries. Melissa Okeke (Ecuador) led the club as Club Leader. Rizreen Siraj served as Faculty Advisor. Emmanuel Rotimi (Nigeria) facilitated the discussion. Gamze Nur Demir (Turkiye) and Eloisa Ibok (Nigeria) handled outreach. Asiedu Jeremiah (Ghana) led the action project component. The session opened with each volunteer introducing themselves, a small but meaningful gesture that made sure the people behind the scenes got to be seen.
The Theme: Education and SDG 4
For its first screening, the Film Club chose Education as its theme, aligned with SDG 4: Quality Education. Two short documentaries, roughly 16 minutes combined, explored that theme through two distinct but deeply connected stories.
The first, Girls Like Us (dir. C. Dallas Golden), follows Winnie, a young woman in Tanzania who defied traditional gender expectations by joining Apps & Girls in 2013 to learn how to code and build websites. The second, A Way Forward (dirs. Jacon and Isaac Seigel-Boettner), tells the story of students Diana and Angela in Kakamega, Kenya, who once walked hours to school each day facing exhaustion and safety risks. Told through the voices of three generations of women, it shows how something as practical as access to transportation can open the door to an entirely different future.
Together, the films painted a full picture of educational equity: one showing what becomes possible when girls are given tools, the other showing what changes when they are simply given a way to get there.
The Moment the Room Came Alive
It also felt like a huge opportunity to bring visibility and awareness to important issues
Attendees were actively commenting throughout the screening itself, which spoke to how much the stories resonated. A standout moment came from participants based in Africa, many of whom felt a personal connection to what they were watching. Both documentaries are set on the African continent, and that proximity to the stories made the discussion richer and more grounded.
At the close of the session, participants were invited to vote on the theme for the next event. The response was enthusiastic. The community chose Technology and Innovation, and that energy carried all the way to the end of the call.
Looking Ahead
The next SIMA Film Club event is scheduled for June 20, 2026 at 10 AM EDT. Alumni can unlock 6-months free access to SIMA Academy SIMA platform by navigating to Unit 2 of the Entrepreneurship pathway in the Engage portal, and the conversation between events continues in the entrepreneurship channel on Discord.
For Aspire, this first session was proof of something the community already knows: that when you bring people together around stories that matter, something real happens.
To join the next SIMA Film Club event, alumni can register via the ELP Pathways page on the Engage portal.
