My Dream

It was a Monday morning when Mr. Adams, our teacher entered, we all stood to respond to his greeting as was the culture. Lessons began as usual. “A doctor, Engineer, lawyer were the chorus answers to his question, what is your dream job? As he walked towards me, he asked, what about you Abby(My first name then)? Air hostess. I answered. Did I even know what that was? No, I had only seen a picture of an air hostess in a book my grandfather bought for me and I wanted to be like her because she was fashionable and classy.

As a child who didn't get easy access to  computers,reading materials and other things that made learning easier, I made up my mind not to let the next generation be victims of circumstances. After my first degree, I founded an organisation called DIF with the aim of bridging the wide gap between rural and urban education. DIF in collaboration with the Ghana Education service and the Ghana Library Authority provide rural pupils with practical lessons in reading and computer skills. Some of these pupils have never seen computers before yet they compete with pupils in the cities (most of whom have access to these things) in their final BECE.(Basic Education Certificate Examination)

Due to this project, I travel to many villages and this has helped me to understand the basic needs of humans, which include food that is mostly produced by farms. But the question is how do we provide this need when we all want fashionable and classy jobs,when most of our graduates look at nothing but white collar jobs in tie and suits?

One afternoon, I stood and watched food being off loaded. The answer to my “why” brought back childhood memories. Most of my mates and I wanted nothing to do with the plagues of farming because it was low class work, only done by those who were illiterate.
On our way back to Accra at about 11 pm, we witnessed a scene which was reported in the following morning's newspapers. Apparently the young women we saw that night were arrested for transacting illegal business (Prostitution). To my amazement four of them were university graduates. Immediately I realised education alone could not do the trick as I linked it to the answer I got from the village. "the youth don't want to farm so they go to city to make a living”.
Of course! Man must survive but how? So I decided to tackle the “how”.

In my search to acquire knowledge and skills to make generational impact, I came into contact with kanthari, an organisation that provides a springboard for social visionaries to transform concepts and conventions. At a session called concept transformation, I realised I could do more to bring social change in Ghana.

Food is a basic need of human,and where do we get this necessity from? The farm of course! So i believe if people are concerned with what they eat,they should be concerned with how and where the food come from. But unfortunately not many people are interested in the "where",that is why I want to be part of the solution to this problem. How? By transforming the mindsets of young women graduates to embrace farming as a means to sustainable livelihood through agricultural and entrepreneurial skills and also by empowering existing smallholder farmers to get equal value for their hard work.

With Gandhi’s quote in mind, I decided to be the change I want to see in the world by firstly, changing myself. I have now developed my farming skills by volunteering with Saigramam and Lend a hand, organisations into farming in India.

I have no doubt in my mind that, the farmer is as equally important as the lawyer and the doctor. If there is no farmer, we will not get food to eat. It is therefore imperative to make farming an attractive career.

I imagine a community where young women graduates are proud to be what I call Agriprenuers. (Agricultural Entrepreneurs) and small holder farmers benefiting from their work.