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 Ghana
- Gottfried Dukugottfrieduku@yahoo.com Birthday: 29th June, 1972 Education: Cert. 'A' (3YR.) Post Secondary Occupation: Teacher Please describe your vision of a world that works for everyone. A world that works for everyone is one in which there is enough of every
resource for everyone regardless of ones color, class or creed. There
certainly are the rich and the poor as one's income is directly related to
how much problems one solves. The greater the problem solved, the richer one
gets. The greater the risk, the better the prize. The poor can therefore
also become rich if they should do what the rich do. This society recognizes and rewards hard work and outstanding feats. At the same time, it eschews laziness. It does so by making resources available to people who have the inner strength to use those resource to improve their lives. Such people must be daring enough to stand out of the crowd and be counted. Envy, jealousy, strife, slander, backbiting have no place in a world that works for everyone. The better your thinking and the greater your labor, the more liberated from the grips of poverty you get in this world. Progress is certain in this world. The rich keep getting richer as they keep on doing what works. But nothing stops the poor from getting rich too once they are willing to subject themselves to the discipline that makes people succeed. What do you see as the most pressing problems facing the world today? In my opinion, this world lacks leaders. Ignorance is our greatest problem as there aren't people who can teach us how to use the human and natural resources at our disposal to better our lot. Issues of life tend to be handled the way a toddler will handle a nuclear bomb should he lay his hands on one. We have national and organizational leaders who have very long and impressive profiles that neither change nor influence nothing. Leaders see what they do as their jobs rather than missions. Yet they always get away with it because they can easily explain their wrong deeds away to the rather ignorant masses. Our leaders are not visionaries. Therefore, they fear to challenge the
status quo. The economic gap between the rich and the poor keeps widening by the day. In the developing world, many work to meet very basic needs of shelter, food and clothing. Almost nothing is set aside for education, neither time nor money. The need to survive is so strong that there is no time to learn any other way of solving problems in the future. The future therefore catches up with us while we are unprepared for the challenges it brings our way. People therefore leave the task of future planning in the hands of those who will do it for a rather higher fee. These 'professionals' also tell their clients what they want to hear- safe future with such and such policies, plans, etc. the client comes into the said future to realize that not all that glitters is gold. This is ignorance at its best once more. Besides poor leadership and ignorance is the fear to fail. The future is certainly unknown to us. We therefore often choose the path of least resistance or even stay where we are even though we desire change and its attendant rewards of a better standard of living. Should we fail while trying our hands at something bigger than us, we shall be laughed at. So we choose to let sleeping dogs lie. The developing world feels inferior to the developed. It is just fine with us if a white skinned person tells us how to 'solve' our problems. It is not noticed when he goes wrong. A person with a colored skin must do twice as much talking to get the same or even sometimes a better message across to his own people. We believe things made in our part of the world are not as good as those made elsewhere. It is even fashionable and a sign of civilization to wear clothes as certain personalities do, speak the way particular groups of people do, walk in a specific way or even do certain specific jobs. One is said to be successful just because he works with a particular class of people or does one of a few jobs seen as noble. How do you feel these problems could best be solved? We ought to learn to know who we are as individuals, accept our individuality and celebrate our differences. Then and only then can we effectively lead others to do likewise. Self awareness alone, however, is not enough. We ought to develop self mastery by changing our thought patterns to conform to those that bring about excellence- truth, purity, holiness, friendliness. We ought to dwell our minds, at all times, on what is truly worthwhile and worthy of praise. By so doing we develop intrinsic strength, which no success minded person can do without. I guess Einstein was right when he said that a man cannot change himself unless he changes the way he thinks. Our elders must develop unqualified passion for tasks they are mandated to execute. They must therefore desist from using such titles as avenues to amass unjustifiable wealth. They must prove to be responsible. This world needs visionaries-people who see what the majority do not see. It takes a visionary to move from mediocrity to excellence. Visionaries do not seek approval from the masses. They are therefore usually unpopular initially. They take inspiration from their inner convictions to act. They do not lose their individuality even in a crowd. Visionaries are often taken for granted and despised until it is too late when they no longer have the mantle of leadership to act. We must celebrate our leaders while they are alive. A statue in honor of the dead does everyone else well but the person thus honored. Then will others be encouraged to lead as their forebears did. Individuals must develop the habit of saving time and money to learn new productive skills. The more we know, the more empowered we get. The more empowered we are, the more liberated we get. The more liberated we are, the more independent we get. The more independent we are, the more interdependent we can choose to become. We ought to learn from the past, but live forward. We can do nothing to change the past, but we can change the future. This requires risk. Without risk, there is neither success nor failure. We must learn to respect our children's individual differences and encourage them to be proud of who they are. We must correct their wrongs very carefully without hurting their pride. As adults, we ought to develop a spirit of forgiveness and consciously choose to unlearn the wrongs passed on to us by our predecessors. In place of those traits we must endeavor to substitute admirable virtues such as truth for falsehood, patience, mercy and endurance for instant justice, empathy for apathy. It is my wish, hope and prayer that we leave this world a better place than we came to find it. Nothing else, in my opinion, matters more than the legacy we leave behind as we move on into oblivion. We shall always be remembered for what we do, well or bad. And this gift will, in no small way affect the destinies of those we leave behind. Whether they are treated with respect or disdain when their association with us is found out will depend on what we tell the world we are. Life is about the future. We are just here to play our roles, one and all. My Profile I had my basic education in a mining community called Obuasi. This was a privilege reserved for children of the mine's senior staff. I, therefore had the best basic education one could ever dream of. In 1984, I was made the Senior Prefect of my school. I qualified to enter Prempeh College, one of Ghana's premier secondary schools, and the alma-mater of Ghana's current President. I chose to study pure science in the hope of becoming a medical doctor one day. I fell short of the grades required for me to continue pursuing my dream. I wrote the exams once more although I could have gone to the Polytechnic or Teacher Training school with my first results. I believed that good students do not go anywhere else but to the university to do either medicine or any other profession based on pure science. The worst I wanted to become was a pharmacist. All my friends had gone on to do science including those I beat in class.
Why not me? I, again, failed to qualify for university after two consecutive attempts. Finally, I sought for and gained admission to the Peki Teacher Training College and qualified as a Junior Secondary School teacher in 1997. My first place of work was Bruben Junior Secondary School. There was no light nor piped water in my area of work. Our drinking water was from the Volta Lake. The main occupation was farming and fishing. The men came in the evening to bathe in the lake while their wives and children fetched the soapy water their husbands and fathers made home to cook and drink. It was alright to drink the water without boiling it. The nearest hospital was 24km away. The access road was so bad that it was almost impossible to get to my village by car especially during the rainy season. In 1999, I sought permission to be released to Accra to teach in a school for the children of soldiers and paramilitary staff. In September 2004, I left teaching to sell motivational books for Dr. Mike Ike, a writer and motivational speaker. Currently, I am studying to become an Information Technology professional. I love science and want to do some thing related to it. I love to travel out of Accra to relax in the serene countryside when I
am less busy. I love to listen to country music especially music by Kenny Rogers and Dolly Patton, songs by artistes from South Africa, classical music especially Handel's Messiah and works by Johan Sebastian Bach. I hope to play the piano and guitar someday. I want to become a successful IT man whose life shall be a story for this generation and others to come, to read and know that as long as we have life, we have hope and that no matter how bad things get in one's life, he can make it if and only if he does not give up. Books Completed:
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