What made this weekend memorable was meeting people from various sectors who refuse to buy into despair and have decided to change the story about Africa.
“Some of the world’s biggest challenges can be solved by some of the world’s most marginalised communities themselves. The moment you inject information, education, and an entrepreneurial spark in a community, it gets empowered enough to inspire, build, and uplift itself.” ― Sharad Vivek Sagar
On Saturday November 10, from most of the nations of West Africa close to 50 social development leaders converged in Accra, Ghana to deliberate on becoming more effective, collaborative agents of change.
It was a wonderful sight, seeing people from various sectors finding common ground and purpose in the desire to see poverty eradicated from Africa.
Also present were the partners and supporters of the efforts to bring about this transformation from all over the world.
I saw the promise and hope of West African nations in an international conference I was invited to at Accra, pertaining to social change makers.
It was a welcome mental break from the deluge of horrid news about our painful situation with bad governance in Nigeria and the suffering of everyone in the nation. It was a deliberate effort to tune out the news and focus on building the people within the nation.
What made this weekend memorable was meeting people from various sectors who refuse to buy into despair and have decided to change the story about Africa.
From the film maker who has decides to focus on telling our stories and focusing on building the value systems of our people through this medium. And to a driven healthcare worker who is committed to ensuring that the near fatal outbreak that almost occurred last year doesn’t take place again by working hard on creating stop measures at schools and our communities.
To the women empowerment advocate who builds women to be self sustainable by learning vocations they use in caring for themselves and families. She shared how heart rending some of the situations the women were trying to get away from were and how important it was to boost them up. I concurred with her.
More tales from these folks in the frontlines of saving and impacting lives give hope that all isn’t lost.
The sad part was that most of these folks don’t get the support that their work deserves and it is a pity because they are the difference, in some cases, between life and death (the health initiatives).
As I gazed across the room at the end of the programme as they sang along to Bob Marley’s “One love”, all I could envision was Africa with leaders such as this championing for her children.
Synergy is the new platinum in driving a renaissance across Africa.
Adetola Salau; Educator / Speaker / Author/ Social Entrepreneur / Innovator
She is an Advocate of STEM Education and is Passionate about Education reform. She is an innovative thinker and strives for our society & continent as a whole to reclaim it’s greatness. She runs an educational foundation with the mission to transform education.
E-mail-:Carismalife4U@gmail.com
Facebook-: Carisma4u
Twitter-: @Carisma4u
Website-: www.carisma4u.com
