Coming of the Drums Update

Morning! I apologise for the lack of posts in recent times... we've all been swept off our feet preparing for what turned out to be a fantastic play :)

Thanks so much to all of you who turned up to watch our mentees perform like the stars they are. We had a great time putting the show together and we hope you had as much fun watching it!

I'd like to say a special congratulations to all our mentees - you worked so hard and it showed during both performances. You should be proud of yourselves; we certainly are of you! I'll be uploading pictures within the next few days so keep an eye out for them. We took video coverage on the second night and will make that available to you as soon as we get a hold of it.

We're working on putting a school performance together... nothing's confirmed yet but we'll let you know how things pan out in the next few weeks or so.

Coming of the Drums

The first ever play organised by the Young Leaders Mentorship Programme draws ever closer with each passing moment. This Friday (27th of May) we'll be performing the first of two exclusive showings of our original play Coming of the Drums at the School of Performing Arts, Legon. Another performance will show on Sunday the 29th.

It's based on Meshack Asare's The Cross Drums and performed by our mentees. Follow the adventures of young Billa and Meriga as they overcome obstacles and unite their two waring villages despite the odds through the bonds of friendship.

This heart-warming tale is testament to the fact that there is indeed a leader in us all; we only need to dig deep within ourselves to find it.

Tickets cost ¢5 for adults and ¢2 for students and will be available on the door. Proceeds from ticket sales will go towards refurbishing the library at Kinbu Secondary Technical School. Doors open at 4.30pm on each day. Come along and bring a few friends, you don't want to miss out!

Mini Seminar Update

Morning all! Just a quick update about our Mini Seminar tomorrow. We'll be going ahead as planned for a 3 o'clock start. We'll have a rehearsal at the same time with the form 3 students so Christiana and I might have to pop in and out occasionally. We'll try to keep that down to a minimum.

We'll be handing Appraisal Forms back so you can start work on the mid-section. A few people have filled that in already but we can find ways to work around that. We'll work on arranging a hand in date based on how things go on the day; most likely they'll be due after half term. If anything is unclear please let me know.

See you on Friday!

How perfect is too perfect?

Below is an excerpt of a post from Jon Acuff (author of Stuff Christians Like)'s blog. He talks about perfectionism and how it robs the world of many a great idea. It was inspired by the weeks and weeks he spent agonising about what his first blog post should be like. You should check out the whole post if you can, it's very easy to relate to and encouraging to anyone (which is most of us) who has been in such a predicament before.

90% perfect and published always changes more lives than 100% perfect and stuck in your head.

The things you create and actually share will always out perform the things that stay stuck in your head or your desk or your laptop. You might love the ideas you have inside you. You might be blown away by how awesome they are, but if you don’t share them, it doesn’t matter.

The business that is open will always wildly outsell the business that is closed.

If your goal is to change the world, you have to share your work in whatever shape or form that might take. And sometimes that means getting comfortable with A -work.

So when you face the perfectionism, and you will, ask yourself one question:

“Do I want to change the world?”

If the answer is yes, then you have to hit “publish” on a blog post, take the stage for a speech, sell your crafts online or do whatever your dream is. And you’ll have to know sometimes that means getting an A minus, not an A plus.

That’s not an excuse to half do your work. I worked hard on this post and edited it like crazy. I want you to be excellent at passion, not just passionate. But chances are, if you’re reading a blog about chasing your dream, doing things half way is not your biggest struggle. The solution to doing something half-heartedly is not difficult. Just do it better. Work harder. Try again. Perfectionism is a lot trickier and we need more tips to beat it than we usually think.

We've been reading...

Time to avoid the dictatorship v democracy debate in Africa
Guardian -- Events in the Middle East have the present generation fired up in much the way their parents were after the movements in eastern Europe in 1989. Right now, it is hard to have a conversation about anything in the field of politics and development without somebody throwing in "what about Tunisia, Egypt, Libya… Syria?" This is all very exciting – as it was in 1989. But from the point of view of anybody whose main concern is enduring poverty and bad governance in low-income Africa, it is also troubling. I write with some feeling as the director of a research programme – Africa, power and politics – that is trying to get across some fresh and evidence-based ideas on the latter subject...

France cancels all of Togo's debt
Daily Notion -- France has decided to cancel all of Togo's debt, amounting to some 100 million euros, in a bid to encourage the West African nation to pursue economic reforms, the finance minister here said Thursday. The deal was signed on Wednesday between France's ambassador and Togo Finance Minister Adji Ayassor to cancel 101.1 million euros ($143.1 million) in debt. "This agreement, under which France has cancelled 100 percent of Togo's debt, puts in practice France's commitment to carry out recommendations of the Paris Club," Ayassor said on state radio. The Paris Club is an informal group of 19 creditor countries and includes the world's most industrialised nations. The group decided in December to cancel $203 million in debt to Togo. Countries also indicated they intended to provide debt relief on a bilateral basis to Togo amounting to $404 million...

Africa's stunning growth can't hide pervasive poverty
Globe and Mail -- There was a flutter of excitement among Africa’s chattering classes this month when a new study concluded that 34 per cent of Africans can be described as middle-class consumers. The study by the African Development Bank was a highly controversial one -- especially when a closer look revealed that 180 million of these supposed “middle class” consumers have such meager incomes that they are spending only $2 to $4 a day. The study was, in some ways, an encouraging look at the continent’s economic growth, showing that Africa is not the hopeless land of poverty and despair that many Westerners have assumed. But there was plenty of data in the study, and in other recent reports, to raise a cautionary flag about the region. Africa is far from an Asian tiger, and naïve cheerleading is not the best response to Africa’s difficult problems...

Malawi lays foundation for science university
Africa Good News -- Seven years after it was first mooted, the Malawi University of Science and Technology (MUST) is finally getting off the ground. President Bingu wa Mutharika laid the foundation stone this month (9 April) in the southern district of Thyolo. MUST - formally known as the Lilongwe University of Science and Technology - will be built with a loan of US$70 million from China on 650 acres of land from the president's farm, something that commentators have flagged as a potential problem if the ruling party fails to win future elections. Construction, which will take 20 months, was due to start last year following an announcement by Mutharika on 25 August. The government had been authorised to borrow US$80 million from the Export-Import Bank of China but the plan was delayed while a suitable site was found...

Aliko Dangote pledges $2 million to raise young leaders

A blog post by Mfonobong Nsehe, Forbes

Africa’s richest man and Nigeria’s first billionaire, Aliko Dangote, has pledged $2 million to establish a fellowship program aimed at grooming young leaders from Africa.

He made the pledge during a press conference at the just concluded World Economic Forum on Africa which was held in Cape Town from the 2nd-5th of May.

Details of the fellowship as well as the selection criteria are yet to emerge, but Dangote promised that his Dangote Foundation will award the fellowship to 35 young Africans. According to Dangote, the objective of the program is to increase the participation of young Africans, particularly those in the non-business sector in the Young Global Leaders (YGL) community program being run by the World Economic Forum. During the press conference Dangote said the fellowship will initially run for five years, and will play a key role in integrating African young global leaders into the global arena. Beneficiaries of the fellowship would go through intense leadership training at highly ranked international institutions.

The Forum of Young Global Leaders is an initiative by the World Economic Forum that brings together more than 700 exceptional young leaders in business and politics who share a commitment to shaping the global future. The young leaders are all under age 40 and are chosen through a rigorous selection process. Only individuals who have accomplished noteworthy achievements and have demonstrated a commitment to improving the societies in which they live are accepted.

Big transparency wins for Ghana

Some news to brighten your day... it certainly did mine! Ian Gary of Oxfam reports:

Many resource-rich countries are notorious for secrecy, corruption and mismanagement of billions in revenues from oil, gas and mining operations. Ghana has long been a gold producer – and a donor darling for its recent track record of good governance – and in December became Africa’s newest oil producer. There are some encouraging signs that Ghana is building in transparency and accountability measures into the legal framework for managing its oil boom – and some more work to be done.

Last week, President Mills of Ghana signed the recently passed Petroleum Revenue Management Bill into law. The law requires the government to publish information on receipts from petroleum companies – online and in national newspapers – on quarterly basis. The Minister of Finance will be required to reconcile receipts and expenditures and submit reports to parliament and to the public every quarter. In addition, audited statements of Ghana’s oil accounts will be made public this year.

In addition to these transparency provisions, the law will establish a Public Interest and Accountability Committee which will include civil society activists. Some parliamentarians had tried to strip out this provision, but civil society campaigners – led by the Oxfam-supported Civil Society Platform on Oil and Gas – fought successfully to keep it in the final bill. Text messaging and other tools were used to gather over 40,000 petition signatures for delivery to Ghana’s parliament.

Ghana’s new law – combined with new disclosure requirements covering companies registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) or receiving World Bank financing – will mean that all foreign companies involved in Ghana’s Jubilee field production will have to disclose their payments to Ghana and Ghana will have to disclose receipts.

You are what you think

Brian Tracy is, among other things, a motivational speaker and self-help author. After travelling around the world as a young man, Tracy was only able to get a job in sales. He struggled, and so took it upon himself to ask successful sales men for advice. Two years later, he was made Vice President of the company he worked for. He was 25 years old. Today he chairs his own world renowned human resources company, Brian Tracy International. Here's a short video on how your thoughts can make you successful:

Leadership Now: 3 Attributes that Will Help You be Better Under Pressure

Leadership Now reviews Justin Menkes' Better Under Pressure:

Justin Menkes says that there are no longer periods of calm seas for leaders in any industry. So it’s not a matter of gritting your teeth and riding out the crisis. Leaders must get comfortable in an environment of ongoing stress. They must be Better Under Pressure.

To do this a leader must possess a “highly unusual set of attributes that often run counter to natural human behavior.” This means leaders must “foster specific attributes to achieve maximum success in themselves and their people. No longer can leaders think of leadership as unidirectional. Instead, leadership “becomes a fluid, virtuous cycle of exchange and growth between leaders and the people they lead.”

Menkes writes, “Almost every human being alive today has an underutilized thirst for bettering himself or herself. It is up to leaders to discover how to trigger this thirst—in fact, it is a leader’s most critical responsibility.” Recognizing and developing that thirst is something that must be and can be learned.

He identifies three catalysts that will help a leader to realize his or her own potential and the potential of others:

Realistic Optimism. Striking a balance between the known and unknown. Kevin Sharer, CEO of Amgen, said, “With all the things that are going on in today’s workplace, if you’re not a little bit self-reflective and self-aware, you’re not going to make it.” And you won’t get the best from your team.

Awareness requires humility. Humility allows you to see yourself as you are. It also allows you to see your role in any problem.

Realistic optimism creates a sense of agency—the degree to which you believe your circumstances are within your control. “People must recognize how—and that—their own approach to the problem can either exacerbate these obstacles or bridge the space between two parties.”

Mini Seminar this Friday!

It’s been a minute but the YLMP is back with a bang! We’ll be having a Mini Seminar this Friday (13th May); Comfort Ocran will be speaking on Developing Inter- and Intra-personal Skills. We’ll start at 3pm in our usual classroom (3D).

I'll be handing back Appraisal forms at the end of the session so that you can start working on the Interim Performance Tracking section.

I understand that some of you are taking exams now. Its not a problem if you can’t make it, please just let me know.

We're not quite done with the schedule for this term yet, still one or two dates to confirm. As soon as we're done I'll post it up here for you to see.

A letter from the UN Programme on Youth

Dear Members of Youth‐Led Organizations:

A High‐level Meeting of the General Assembly on Youth will be held at United Nations Headquarters in New York on 25 and 26 July 2011 (as per General Assembly Resolution 65/L.63). The High‐level Meeting on Youth will result in a concise action oriented outcome document. In the run‐up to the High‐level Meeting, the President of the General Assembly will produce a draft text of the outcome document, in consultation with Member States, taking into account input from “youth‐led organizations”.

In this context, Member States held the first consultation on the draft outcome document on 19 April 2011. This meeting gave Member States an opportunity to consider how to further implement existing commitments on youth development, and to reflect upon the elements that could be addressed in the draft text of the outcome document. Member States are considering the theme of the ongoing International Year of Youth: Dialogue and Mutual Understanding, as well as topics of youth development and elements concerning youth and their well‐being, youth and the global economy including social development, and youth participation.

In parallel, the formal process for receiving inputs from youth‐led organizations for the outcome document has begun. We are pleased to have this opportunity to hear directly from youth‐led organizations regarding your priorities. In brief, this is the time for you to share your views and let your voice be heard!

New Website To Trace Origins of Enslaved Africans

APO reports:

Little is known of the ancestry of Africans pulled into the trans-Atlantic slave trade, but a new website, launched at Emory University in the United States this week, aims to change that.

The African-Origins website provides a rare glimpse of the identities of Africans aboard early nineteenth-century slaving vessels, and through this information, the possibility of tracing the origins of millions of other Africans forcibly transported to the Americas. Public participation will be critical to piecing together this missing history.

According to a statement volunteer assistance is needed from Africans, African Diaspora and scholars.

Visitors to African-Origins can search an online database of Africans liberated from slaving vessels, with such details as gender, age, African port of departure, and, most importantly, an African name. Because names used within African languages and social groups have remained fairly consistent over the last two centuries, the thousands of names listed in this database are clues to the linguistic and ethnic origins of the Africans on board these vessels.