I’ve officially been in Ghana for one month.
I spent the last week traveling the
Central Region and the Western Region of Ghana by pickup truck, visiting senior
high schools and credit unions. Travelling the back roads of Ghana by pick-up
is nothing like traveling back roads in Nova Scotia. The back roads in Ghana
are more like the test track that they show 4x4 trucks running on
advertisements for Ford. It’s something of a “Man vs. Nature” endurance test.
Ernest and I arrived in Takoradi
(Western Region) with our driver Sammy after our vigorous drive through the
breathtakingly beautiful countryside. We spent the night in a nice little motel
outside of the town core.
The next morning we travelled into
town to talk to the management at the local credit union about joining us for a
Youth Savings Club recruitment session at one of the local high schools.
Standing in front of thousands of students, in a speakers’ panel consisting of
the credit union manager and the head mistress of the school was more than a
little intimidating. I told the students about my own personal savings and how
I worked through high school in order to pay for my university tuition. During
university, I also worked in order to supplement the tuition as much as
possible. I left the auditorium with a sense of pride that I could possibly
impact a handful of students to think about the possibility of saving for
post-secondary education or for possibly starting their own business.
During the afternoon, Ernest and I
travelled from Takoradi to the neighboring town of Adiembra. In Adiembra, Ernest
and I ran an intensive entrepreneurship training session. The session involved
teaching the kids about the principles of marketing, explaining the differences
between the business structures that companies use (Sole-Proprietorship,
Partnership, Corporation and Co-operative), and a few other things that I hope
will inspire them to start thinking about owning their own business after
they’ve finished school. After the session was over, the students demanded that
there be a photo session. All the students gathered around and encouraged me to
stand in the center of the group for the photo. After the group shot was taken
about fifteen of the students lined up to each take an individual picture with
me. During this process I was proposed to by approximately three teenage girls.
The girls would come up to me, pose for a picture and then say, “White man, I
will marry you,” and then laugh and walk away joking with their friends.
After a solid week of traveling from
town to town (Bompeh, Komenda, Etc.) over roads that were designed for
adventurous off-roaders, we finally arrived back in Accra. After four days of
going to schools, telling the kids about the value of owning their own business
and the pride you can find in entrepreneurship, I arrived back at my apartment.
-Joel
-Joel
