Want to teach in Ghana?

Samson Tingbani, one of our senior mentors has informed me of a volunteering opportunity from Teach 4 Ghana for readers outside Ghana interested in teaching here. It's for people under the age of 35 with an NQT, PGCE or other teaching qualification. If you can commit for one academic year (September - June) you might want to check it out. More information:

Are you a newly qualified teacher? Are you young and energetic and looking to gain international educational experience? Do you have a sense of adventure? Teach 4 Ghana provides the perfect opportunity for those seeking to enter the international teaching field. It gives newly qualified teachers the opportunity to work for emerging international schools who teach the British National Curriculum in Ghana. Volunteers will work alongside their Ghanaian colleagues sharing good practice and learning on the job. Volunteers will have a regular teaching load and will also get the opportunity to write schemes of work, lessons plans, mark and assess students work, plus getting involved in extracurricular activities.

The volunteer pays a one time placement fee of £500 this covers the following:

• A Skype interview
• Reference and police checks
• Matching the volunteers to the best fit schools
• Assistance with visas
• Orientation upon arrival in Ghana
• Airport pick up & drop off at the end of the program
• Monitoring & supporting the volunteers throughout their stay in Ghana.

What will the volunteer do?
Volunteers will have a regular teaching load and work alongside local teachers, writing schemes of work, lessons plans, marking and assessment of students plus getting involved in extracurricular activities.

Quality followship as a factor in effective leadership

This is an interesting blog post from Bestride Consulting Limited we were emailed at work today. It was written by Olusegun Olaiya, a Nigerian HR Management and Leadership Consultant. If you have any enquiries about the article, you can contact him at olusegunolaiya@bestrideconsulting.com.
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“Lead me, follow me, or get out of my way.”
Gen. George Patton, U.S. Army (1885-1945)

In most, if not in all cases we talk, write, read about our leaders on what they are and are not; what they have done and what they have not done. Even in the context of what they have done we often turn our searchlight on what they did right and what they did not do right. We praise, but in most cases we condemn them and their actions. We are quick at highlighting the qualities of effective leaders at the exclusion of effective and formidable followers. In all these, we have conveniently forgotten that a society deserves the kind of leaders it gets. In other words, there is a direct correlation between the qualities of the followers and the qualities of the leaders in society.

Taking Nigeria for instance, we cry of corruption on the parts of our leaders at various levels in the private and public sectors. How many of us crying foul can confidently come out to say he has challenged any of the leaders being accused, either directly or indirectly. Such courageous people are few. I mean every word of that sentence. Let us test the validity or otherwise of this assertion now by attempting to answer the under listed questions:

1. How many of us today actually got our driver’s license by going through the normal official procedures?
2. How many of us have been able to challenge the extortions of the Police and other law enforcement agents at the road blocks?
3. How many Nigerian parents can today allow their children to go through the rigours of sitting, writing and passing WAEC and NECO without hiring ‘mercenaries’ to take the burden off their children?
4. How many salary earners (private and public) who are living in their own houses can confidently say that they built those mansions from their meager salaries and not from bribes and kickbacks taken from innocent people (if at all they are innocent)?
5. How many Nigerian families will support any of their members who are in government but has chosen not to take bribes/kickbacks from government contractors?
6. How many Nigerian would see a fellow Nigerian knocked down by a hit and run driver and pick him/her to the hospital for treatment?
7. How many Nigerians are honest and sincere in very little things at individual and family levels?

We've been reading...

The evolution of development
Guardian -- The future of development. What a title. It's fraught with hostages to fortune, bear traps and day dreams. I pick 2030 as "the future". Partly because, 15 years after the first set of millennium development goal (MDG) targets I expect poverty (percent and numbers) in Asia to be much lower, and in Africa I expect the decline to be strong too. But partly because it is far enough away to think a bit more freely. In 2030 the talk will be of global goods, not MDGs. Global goods will be measured by targets on emissions, trade, international finance, arms and crime, and will be underpinned by the governance to deliver them. They will apply to all countries, not just the poorer ones. They will be about stewardship of the planet and protection of global citizens from malevolence...

Rising food prices, Expert trade advice
ONE -- To prevent high food prices from going higher, experts from the World Bank to the US Department of Agriculture (located only a few blocks away from one another), continue to chant the mantra “free trade policy will solve high prices.” The benefit of refraining from export bans seems to make sense to me since they keep more food on the world markets, thus lowering prices some, although I understand why an exporting government might want one. However, I question some of the experts’ views on whether lowering import tariffs and taxes will protect the world’s poorest...

New one-stop business registry to boost Liberia economy
World Bank -- The Government of Liberia has opened new one-stop business registries in the country's three main cities, Monrovia, Ganta and Buchanan. The one-stop business registry system will greatly simplify and speed up the process of starting a business, allowing Liberian entrepreneurs to register their business in 48 hours instead of 99 days. "It is a new day for businesses in Liberia," said Abu Kamara, head of the new Liberia Business Registry office in Monrovia. "It will ease enterprise formalization and facilitate enterprise growth through improved access to information and finance"...

14,000 km of wire to transform Africa
ONE -- Work is currently underway for a new cable that will boost internet access in Africa. With four times more data, West Africa Cable System (WACS) will boost bandwidth for the world’s least-connected region. This new undersea communications cable will be laid along the coast of West Africa and will allow Africans a fast internet access for the first time. And the process is pretty insane. Ditches are being dug to accommodate the wax cable, which will run 14,000 kilometers and will land in at least 12 countries along the way from London to South Africa...

Changing the world with technology

I never tire of reading stories like these. This one's by Peter Taylor of ONE.

Every year billions of us shop, pay our bills, watch TV or play games using the internet. It’s moved from being the domain of the computer geek to being an essential part of modern life.

But despite its mainstream popularity, the net still manages to surprise with its ability to change the world in new and exciting ways. In particular in parts of the world not normally associated with high-tech gadgetry. The rise of the cheap mobile phones (40% of Africans own one), and software that bridges the gap between the web and the phone have led to innovative ways to combat extreme poverty and save lives.

Examples like the Zambian farmers who are able to check prices for their produce using phones or the crowd-source app Ushahidi, which generates real time reports from text messages – and has been used in the recent Nigerian elections, the potential for simple yet effective technology is enormous.

Many of these new technologies have been built at a grassroots level to solve local problems, and the resulting solutions have then been shared around the world using the same principals that originally gave rise to the world wide web.

To showcase and celebrate these new technologies and how they are used, and provide assistance for grassroots projects, the Guardian newspaper has created a new site called Activate, which is well worth checking out. The paper is also holding corresponding events in New York on 28 April, and in London in June, where ONE’s very own Executive Director Jamie Drummond will be speaking.

You can read more, including how to attend the events at the Guardian Activate website.

We're back!

Afternoon all! Hope you all had a restful time over the Easter break.

This is a quick post to let you know that we're back, and hope to start blogging again with YLMP content pretty soon! During the holidays we've been busy rehearsing our play with the SHS3 students at Kinbu. We're still shooting for an end of May production; I'll keep you posted on that!

Our first Mini Seminar will be on Friday the 16th of May. The third term calendar is just about finalised, I'll put it up as soon as we're done with it.

Till then, I'll keep pointing you in the direction of any interesting articles I find on my travels around the Web!

Motivation

It's funny how things work out sometimes. A few days ago, I came across this article on by Matthew Syed the BBC website. And today, for the first time since I shared their Transactional vs Inspirational Leadership series, I visited the Lead Change Group blog. There, I happened to chance upon this account by Deborah Costello.

Both pieces are, if you like, different perspectives on the same issue - motivation and hard work (or rather, motivation to work hard). Costello ends with an interesting sentiment:

You are a leader in your work whether you have that title or not. People see you do your job. Do you do it joyfully or are you working for the weekend? Do you do your best or are you just checking the boxes? Look around you. Can you help create and be a part of a culture, a company that changes how it thinks about the work? What if hard work wasn’t really work at all? And if it’s not work, is it really hard?

She may be talking about work but really that is applicable to every aspect of life; to life itself in fact. As Syed rightly points out, we need to move away from traditional thinking that states that we're good at what we do because we were simply 'made that way'.

I feel the most important thing is to identify what we are passionate about and let that be our motivation. It's difficult to achieve your full potential when you're working in an area you have no interest in. Difficult, but with the right attitude, certainly not impossible. As students, it becomes easier to deal with subjects you have been 'made to do' with that in mind.

At the end of it all, the world is your oyster.

Digital Africa

There's a pretty cool mini series running over at ONE at the moment titled 'Digital Africa'. They're showcasing the latest innovations in technology helping in the fight against poverty across the African continent. If you've been following this blog for a while, you'll know that this is an area I'm particularly interested in.

The series started recently and there are just a few articles on there at the moment. If you have a look now, you'll find posts about the impact of technology in Africa, providing banking solutions for rural areas and and even one about an app for tracking cows. The rate at which new technology is springing up is amazing, particularly in the mobile phone area. Mobile penetration in Africa has been making big news over the past two years or so, and the solutions that African people (and indeed people all over the world) are coming up with to address African problems are a testament to this.

In the next five or ten years, who knows where we'll be? These are exciting times.

CNN gets Ghana wrong

This is a great read. It was originally written by Kobby Graham on kobigraham.wordpress.com.

Dear CNN.com

Not that you care, but you have recently managed to annoy almost everyone in the otherwise rather goodwilled Ghanaian online community; a shame because many of us actually like your website.

Over time, Africans have become quite used to seeing our stories oversimplified, misreported or under reported by Western media agencies. Most recently, we watched and shook our heads as goings-on in Ivory Coast were simplified into a struggle between “Bad-gbo” (who must have been surprised to hear that his parents had changed his first name from ‘Laurent’ to ‘Strongman’) and ‘good guy’, Alassane Outtara: ‘good’ in spite of the fact that troops loyal to him are accused of some of the same crimes he says his defeated rival should be tried for.

Hm.

Africans used to – no: still – complain about such bad reporting, but we have become used to seeing our dissent ignored in the news that comes back to us through CNN and such. It’s the Circle of Life.

Or at least the Circle of Western journalism.

You recently published an article purporting to go "Inside the Criminal World of Ghana’s e-mail Scam Gangs". I won’t post a link here. You know where to find it. Besides, I only post links to factual articles.

Many Ghanaians (and some non-Ghanaians) have complained about the piece in its Comment section. They are – of course – being ignored. Which we are – of course – used to.

I figured the best thing to do would be to take some choice quotes, pick them apart and show what my problems are with them. There may in fact be more problems that I have missed. I represent myself: not all of Ghana.

Please be warned: quotes may be taken out of context. Instinctively I feel this is problematic. However, Western reporting on Africa appears to suggest that it is okay so I will assume that I am speaking your language.

Coming of the Drums rehearsal

Our first Coming of the Drums rehearsal will happen this Friday at Kinbu. We'll be starting at 2pm in the assembly hall. Remember that we still have a few unassigned roles so if you'd like to try out for any of these parts feel free to come along! We'll have extra scripts available for quick auditions. We're also looking for people to be part of the 'general cast' (dancers, warriors etc) and for people to be part of the technical team.

As much as we'd like to see as many of you as possible, please keep in mind that the play is open only for SHS3 students. Students who 'graduated' from our mentoring programme last year will be given priority.

2011 or 1979? New pension scheme could mark turnaround in Ghana

Nextbillion.net reports:

1978. How many Nextbilllion.net readers weren't even born yet that year? That was the year, for example, when Garfield the Cat made his comic-strip debut. Two Popes died that year. The Chinese government lifted its ban on works by Aristotle, Shakespeare, and Charles Dickens. Israel and Egypt made peace. Atlantic City, N.J. opened its first casino. 1978 also happens to mark the birth of today's U.S. venture capital industry. 2011 could be that year for Ghana.

In 1978, the U.S. Department of Labor relaxed key provisions in the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, allowing pension funds to invest in private equity (PE) firms, including venture capital groups. The change caused a tsunami of capital to new and growing firms, as capital under PE firm management went from $39 million in 1977 to $570 million in 1978. Startup and growth capital in the U.S. has never been the same.

This year, key changes from Ghana's 2008 pension law come into effect that might lead to a similar explosion in private equity and venture capital. The pension scheme is now mandatory for all public and private formal sector workers in Ghana; 13.5 percent of formal sector salaries will be deducted and placed under the management of Ghana's Social Security and National Insurance Trust. An additional 5 percent of each formal sector worker's salary will be deducted and placed under management of private institutional investors.

That 5 percent could be as much as $400 million annually for institutional investors, as Bloomberg News recently reported. About 25 percent of that will go into equities, implying $1.9 million in capital per week moving into a stock market with a current weekly turnover of only $1.8 million, according to the Bloomberg report. The rest of the estimated $400 million will go into local currency debt investments.

Gadhafi accepts AU peace plan

According to the Jacob Zuma, Gadhafi has accepted the AU's peace plan. BBC reports:

South African President Jacob Zuma says the Libyan government has accepted an African Union peace proposal to end the eight-week-old conflict.

Mr Zuma's AU delegation met Libyan leader Col Muammar Gaddafi in Tripoli on Sunday. An AU team is going to the eastern rebel stronghold of Benghazi.

But rebel spokesmen said there could be no truce unless Col Gaddafi stepped down and his forces withdrew.

In Ajdabiya, pro-Gaddafi forces have pushed back rebels in fierce fighting.

Nato says its planes destroyed 25 government tanks on Sunday alone.

The AU deal's main points are:

• An immediate ceasefire
• The unhindered delivery of humanitarian aid
• Protection of foreign nationals
• A dialogue between the government and rebels on a political settlement
• The suspension of Nato airstrikes

"The brother leader [Col Gaddafi] delegation has accepted the roadmap as presented by us," Mr Zuma declared.

"We have to give the ceasefire a chance," he said, after several hours of talks.

In all, the AU mission comprised representatives from five nations: presidents Jacob Zuma of South Africa, Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz of Mauritania, Amadou Toumani Toure of Mali and Denis Sassou Nguesso of Congo-Brazzaville, and Uganda's Foreign Minister Henry Oryem Okello.

We've been reading...

Foreign aid is not a waste of money
Telegraph -- We must aim to abolish the need for aid, but that time has not yet come, argues Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. As public spending cuts have an impact across European and North American countries, the debate over the value of overseas aid is reaching new levels of intensity, no more so than in the United Kingdom where the Coalition has pledged to ringfence and increase the aid budget to reach 0.7 per cent of its Gross National Income from 2013. The devastating earthquake and tsunami in Japan adds a new and urgent perspective, tragically showing how even a rich and developed nation can find itself in need of external humanitarian assistance...

Food prices down from record high
BBC -- Global food prices fell in March after eight months of rising to record highs, according to the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Its index of global food prices, which measures monthly changes for foods including cereals, meat and sugar, averaged 229.8 points in March, down from February's record of 236.8 points. Unrest in the Middle East and the natural disaster in Japan dented demand for grain, depressing the price. The UN warned the fall could be a blip. A top official at the agency told the Reuters news agency that global food prices were expected to begin rising again soon as demand begins to bounce back...

The business of putting yourself out of business
CIPE Blog -- With concern over national debts rising, many donor countries are looking for ways to scale back spending wherever they can. With this trend, foreign aid and other development programs are under scrutiny for being nonessential to domestic needs. Disregarding the many shortcomings in arguments for cutting development aid, the politicians may be on to something: is foreign assistance meant to last forever? At an event in Washington, DC, I asked a similar question to a panel of distinguished experts in the field. They collectively held years of working in large development and humanitarian aid agencies, ranging from Oxfam to the United Nations. I wanted to know, how can those working in development achieve the goal of recipient countries funding and implementing their own public development projects? ...

Ghana ranked 11th friendliest country
Africa News -- Africa News reports that West African nation Ghana has been judged the eleventh friendliest country in the world, according to a survey by the reputable Forbes international magazine. The report said that makes the country with a population of about 24 million one of the preferred tourism destinations around the globe. According to an article on the official Ghana presidency website, the former British colony was the only African country to rank high in the Forbes survey. The survey, which was done in consultation with a cross-section of world travellers in 2010, found that Ghana is one of the "most welcoming nations"...

APO: Forum promotes empowerment of African youth

The African Youth Forum, organised by the Department of Human Resources Science and Technology (HRST) of the African Union Commission (AUC), opened on Friday 1 April 2011 at the African Union headquarters.

The forum, a pre-summit event of the June-July AU Summit, has attracted about 300 youth representatives from all over Africa and the Diaspora with the theme:' Accelerating Youth Empowerment for Sustainable Development'.

During the opening ceremony Professor Jean-Pierre Ezin, AUC Commissioner for Human Resources, Science and Technology (HRST), underlined the need for the full involvement of the youth in Africa in the development process. He went on to say that the youth should have the will and faith to use their potential capabilities for the development of Africa. Efficiency and the development of Africa depends on youth empowerment, and the youth need education in various ways and forms, so that they contribute to the development process, he further observed.

Prof Ezin noted that since the regional, national and international organizations are working on development programmes, they need to speed up the involvement of the youth. He stressed the importance of improving the socio-economic status of the youth. This is a time for the youth to speak up and speak out, he said.

YLMP Newsletter

Great news, the first issue of the YLMP Newsletter is out! We'll be handing out copies during our next session together.


We're looking to make this an annual production. If you'd like to contribute to the next issue please let me know.