Support A Young Ghanaian Leader

Dear friends,

I would like to share a story with you. It’s a long one, but meaningful to say the least. It’s from a good friend of mine in Ghana who I believe is going to be a great leader in the country. He is at a point where he needs support in making it through his education, and I am at a point where I am unable to support him from a financial perspective. I wanted to put this post out there in case anyone is interested in helping me support Daniel through his education. As you’ll see from the following write-up, he is an ambitious young man with endless amounts of determination. I still remember when I first met him, he was working 2 jobs and never missed a beat. He was a huge part of my personal success in Ghana and I am committed to helping him as best I can.

If you are interested in helping Daniel out, please let me know (im-at-ryancoelho-dot-com) and we can figure things out. Daniel operates with high integrity, always keeping myself and others who support him informed of where the money goes.

My life story is very interesting and pathetic to anyone who pay heed to it as it unveils. Anyway first of all my alphabetical nomenclatures are ASAAH DANIEL NSOH.  ASAAH in my language which is gurune means RAIN , DANIEL means GOD IS MY JUDGE and  NSOH means FATHER and why NSOH  because i was named after my great grand father. For that matter i am accorded great respect and honour me in my family Both old and young, the clan and the community.  They accord me the necessary respect and honour because they see me to be the representative of our great grand father since i am named NSOH after him. So sometimes decisions cannot be taken in the family without my knowledge though I am 26 years not elderly but yeah they honour so that is the interesting part of my life hahahaa.

Beside am born and raised by very poor parents who hardly get three meals a day. A family that everything seems to never work which I do ask myself wether there  has been a curse in the family . Since the genesis of creation, there has never been any education or any success in the family. Living from hand to mouth is the best phrase I can use for the family. Farming is their major priority to livelihood. They live in real abject poverty. They do rearing too sometimes but have to sell them for food or settle hospital bills in case ill-health strike a family member down. But the amazing thing in the family is that they are always happy and never complain meaning they are very happy people. This makes me cast my mind back to a book I read which says “A PAINLESS POVERTY IS BETTER THAN EMBITTERED WEALTH” and I totally agree. Money is not everything in this world. I see money as a material which serves as a medium of exchange but it cannot provide you air or happiness. Some people have superfluous wealth but they never know what happiness is about. Sometimes I do wish I hadn’t been born into such a family. I have gone through a lot of hell life all my life and in fact considering my family background, I see only education as the tool that can transform the family and my personal life as well as my two siblings and others in the family. I have struggled a lot just to get myself into school to pursue my career and I am finally now studying marketing in Bolgatanga Polytechnic.

HOW DID I PAY MY SCHOOL FEES?

How can someone like me from such an unfortunate pay my school fees after you read the above. Kudos goes to Ryan Coelho who I met 2008 in Ghana when he was posted as a volunteer to work for engineer without borders. In fact, being honest and trustworthy pays. I must say because I know they studied me before extending friendship to me. If I hadn’t lived up to his expectation, I don’t think a time like now I need his help, he will mind me. I am philosophical to strange people I meet anywhere .I  have always respected and humbled myself before anyone I meet in this world because it’s a global village and it’s so small and you can’t tell who will change your life tomorrow. I met Ryan like a friend and I never knew a time will come where he will make great impact in my life but look at it today. When Ryan was in Ghana, from his conversations we had several times, you realize that he sis the type who want to change lives. I could always see it from his eyes and his body language. He supported me a lot in terms of so many things. The care and love he showed me is more than giving me pots  of gold and treasure. I was always happy because I felt I was nobody but also I felt was loved by someone who is not even a family member and that is Ryan. Up to now he is still doing a lot. He was the one alongside other concern Canadian citizens who contributed to making my admission possible. The fee was a lot and I felt hopeless because there was no way I could raise such money. But I informed him and he worked hard and made it possible. In fact, my  indebtedness goes to Ryan and Megan Putnam. They are the people who brought me this far. Their names can never be forgotten in family and wherever I find myself. I truly and truly love him and I must confess from the bottom of my heart. May happiness, good health and prosperity be your portion. I am lack of words for you but know that the four letters LOVE is what is rooted in my heart for you. You have left a huge legacy and foot prints in my life. If we have 50% people like you in this world, I promise it will be a better place to reside. Bro you are my MEN.

WHY IS DAN STUDYING MARKETING AT THE POLYTECHNIC?

Marketing as a course has been my passion to pursue and not for a superficial reason. Marketing is also a field one can make money for himself. But the money involved after the course is not  my driving force. I think I will be happy to see myself doing what I have always loved to do. It is a field my potential greatly falls. In the initial stage, I wanted to do nursing but I realized it was not my dream. I have the qualities to be a good marketing officer or manager. I know myself.  There is very high unemployment rate in Ghana and people always feel it’s the government’s responsibility to get them jobs but to me that is purely disputable. The youth in Ghana and not only Ghana but other West African countries after their education feel the Canada, USA, UK, Germany, etc are the best places they can make it. we can make it here in Ghana even bigger and bigger. We can all make it in our homeland be it Ghana or any west African country. We have the know the knowledge but it’s the negative attitude that retrogresses our own progress or success. If one refuses to look, how he can see?. People fail to use the knowledge we tap from school to invent or establish some creative businesses. It’s about time we stop criticizing the government for jobs and rather find alternative ways of becoming self employers.  One reason of studying marketing is to establish my own business enterprise and not relying on the government for job opportunity. When I complete this course successfully, I can create employment for the future generation when I secure job or establish my own business. One of the role of the marketing officer is to create employment because you need a lot of hands to help your business grow or succeed.. I know numerous graduates  who have completed the universities, the polytechnics and they are just sitting redundant at home for years doing nothing and crying in the government’s ears for jobs. It’s so sad to here people explain how they apply for jobs and they are turned down because corruption has become more than a system in recent times in Ghana especially when you are applying for Jobs. For the ladies they have to use them before they the job. For the gents, they have to bribe with huge sums of money before they secure employment. It’s heart breaking when you hear these form our future leaders what officers are doing to them. So looking at this, I think when I tap marketing knowledge and establish my own business I will help reduce the unemployment rate by creating employment for the jobless. And my employment is going to base on merit and not whatsoever. So I was motivated to study marketing because of some of these rising factors. There should be somebody to bring exemplary style of employment into the system and end these dirty acts. One of those to bring changes to Ghana in terms of giving genuine employment devoid of bribery and sex before giving jobs to people should  be Dan myself. I am very proud to say that cause it’s about time somebody stand up and fight such acts which are uncalled for.

Let me hammer on a countries socio-economic development. If you want to consider the development of a country, you realize that the government cannot solely transform the country’s image. There is great impossibility for the government to accomplish 100% development in all sectors of the economy or our beloved country Ghana. So there is the need for all hands to be on board so that we can together as one to lift the status of Ghana. SO HOW DO WE ACHIEVE THIS? If everyone really has a good foresight for this country like I do, I think students after pursuing their career courses at the polytechnics or universities should endeavour to bring up initiatives that can create businesses not to create employment only or job opportunities, but also businesses that the government can source revenue for development. So indirectly you realise that you are playing a major role in the countries’ transformation or development .Most countries development largely comes from retailers, wholesalers and some giant business institutions. Taxes taken from citizens working on government payroll alone cannot do much for the country. It’s sad to keep receiving donor help every year. This is y country and we should develop our country and not someone doing it for us. It takes the citizens of a nation to give such a nation a facelift.  Sometimes the government have to take huge sums of loan from the USA, CANADA, UK etc to develop our country. Ghana’s level of development is largely contributed by NGO’s and philanthropist because they see that the government alone cannot play a development role in such a third world country like Ghana. My purpose of pursuing marketing is to use my knowledge and establish my own business venture so that whatever income I may be making, part of it can contribute to the development of my country. Even if it’s not enough, but at least it’s better than none. Half a loaf of bread is better than none as they say.

Beside, in everything you do you must love yourself before others. I don’t know if my statement is disputable but to me that is a fact. If a friend say pass a knife across your throat to show him how you indeed love him, I don’t think anyone will stand out. Though I love my country and hope to contribute woefully to my country’s betterment but beside that I have two siblings I have to take care of. Looking at my parents to create a good academic foundation for them will be in vain because they can’t contribute anything because they don’t have. They show us the love parents should show their children but they are financially handicapped which I wouldn’t cast my hopes on them to take care of my brothers educational needs. So as I am in school studying this course, my future anticipation is to come out successfully and secure a good job or establish my own business and make some money to support their education. I am the senior and they are all looking up to me so that means if I fall, then they fall too. I love my brothers and I want to give them the best education I can but the unfortunate thing is that, I am financially powerless which I can do nothing for now but I am very optimistic that this course I am pursuing will get me somewhere as well as seeing my siblings and others impacted by success.

MY CHALLENGES IN THE PURSIT OF THIS COURSE.

Being a first year student is like running a cross country race. It’s very difficult. You get somewhere and you feel like ending race there because you are getting short of breath and no water to wet your throat and cool down your temperature so that you can have the energy and the urge to continue. Same applies to me here in school. Everyday I have to eat three times a day, I have buy sachets of water number of times a day, Sometimes a friend will complain since morning nothing dropped in his stomach and you are human. You can’t just say get the hell out of my way. Life is funny and you don’t no what you also need from him tomorrow. Today you are better and he thinks you can help him and what about you. Do you what will happen to you tomorrow? You don’t know. So sometimes I have to be caring or humane, I ride motto to school and I buy fuel four times in a week  and service it monthly, paying water and light bills, unplanned budget or emergency,etc all sum up to GHC 387.50. This is the honest expenditure I make. Beside I have not spoken on hand outs yet. When it comes to hand outs I can’t be specific because sometimes it depends how fast we finish a topic before going to another that will determine the number of hand outs we buy in a whole month and that will also go in the long run to determine how much is spent on handouts. So I hope you will understand me on this note of hand outs. Though sometimes I spend GHC 200.00 or GHC300.00 or spending less on hand outs. One funny thing about handouts is that it’s not compulsory to buy handouts I may go and do my research somewhere and answer the lecturers question he may set during exams be it mid-semester, semester or class test but if you don’t buy his handouts, he will intentionally fail because that is also where he make extra money. So he feels like STUDENT what are you trying to tell me? Hahaha so you see. It’s serious. So for hand outs, they are indirectly compulsory to buy no choice for man. Sometimes I don’t care even if I haven’t eaten but I should be able to have money for handouts. Sometimes I don’t have this entire amount for my upkeep unless a good Samaritan from somewhere help me with money. Sometimes I miss lectures because I may not be able to fuel my motto to school. In fact, if I want to keep hammering on what I am going through, you can’t read but I just want you to get a clue of what I am talking about. I have a bright future in the pursuit of this course but my main hindrances to my future in this course are my challenges.  They say he who wears the shoe knows how it pinches. Ryan this is I want to share with you. But all the same I appreciate what you have been doing for me and still you are doing your best for me. Deep down my heart I really appreciate it. GOD CONTINUE TO BLESS YOU FOR YOUR KIND GESTURE TOWARDS HUMANITY. Greetings to everyone who care about me and I love them all. MEERY X’MAS TO YOU AND THE GOOD CITIZENS OF CANADA. MAY YOUR NEW YEAR BE A BLESSED AND A DREAM COME THROUGH ONE. Byeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee Daniel.

 

Thanks for taking the time to read this and if you have any questions or would like to support please do get in touch!

Forever grateful,
Ryan