"It contributes greatly towards a man's moral and intellectual health to be brought into habits of companionship with individuals unlike himself, who care little for his pursuits, and whose sphere and abilities he must go out of himself to appreciate."
- Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864)
One of the best things people from privileged backgrounds in our homeland Ghana, can do, if they want to find true happiness and purpose in their lives, is to befriend disadvantaged and marginalised people - and utilise their personal networks, to find creative ways through those networks, to empower the poor to bootstrap their way out of the poverty trap successfully. It is often a life-changing and life-enhancing experience for all involved in such social interactions - and one would recommend it to the vast majority of the members of Ghana's fast-expanding and hardworking middle-classes: who form the backbone of our country's amazing and world-class talent-pool.
Speaking personally, for example, faced with the prospect of becoming homeless recently, at a time when one was quite unwell - with serious medical issues and having been literally priced out of a property owned by a very kind family whose house in McCarthy Hill had served as our home for the past 8 years or thereabouts - one immediately came to understand the incredible stress homelessness causes.
In our case, luckily, we eventually found ourselves a reasonably priced property to move into that shares a fence-wall with Gomoa Buduburam's Camp Liberia - alas, now a pale shadow of itself: as a result of the fact that most of the nearly 47, 000 Liberian refugees who once lived there, have been repatriated to their native Liberia. Only about 7,000 Liberians now remain in Gomoa Buduburam's Camp Liberia - the majority of whom have opted to be integrated into Ghanaian society.
Six months after our move to Gomoa Buduburam's State Housing Estate, today, I have now befriended a number of fellow journalists from Camp Liberia's refugee community, who have chosen to be integrated into Ghanaian society. With their help, a number of like-minded residents of the State Housing Company's Budumburam Estate, have set up an informal group - known as 'The Buduburam Arts Collective' - to assist gifted people amongst Gomoa Buduburam's Camp Liberia's residents to monetise their talents.
It has been an amazing experience for one. And one encourages everyone who can do so to get out of his or her comfort zone in the area of social relationships - and befriend disadvantaged people: and help those in our nation's base-of-the-pyramid demographic who seek to better themselves but don't know how to earn money honestly. In the long run it makes for stable and peaceful communities right across our country, when extreme poverty is eliminated from our politically stable, incredibly beautiful, mostly-peaceful and blessed country, the Republic of Ghana.
It so happens that as we speak, some of the members of the 'Budumburam Arts Colective' are preparing to publish the maiden print edition of Ghana's first street newsmagazine, 'The Big Issue Ghana'. Its unique business model (an amalgamation of the business models of 'The Big Issue UK' and that of 'The Big Issue Australia') will enable poor and vulnerable people across Ghana to have a source of regular income - and empower many in our nation's base-of-the-pyramid demographic to bootstrap their way to financial independence - because they get to keep all of the magazine's cover price every time they make a sale. Cool.
A simple idea - finding socially responsible corporate sponsors to fund the printing of what will be a most interesting read, 'The Big Issue Ghana' - could help end youth unemployment in the bottom strata of Ghanaian society. Innovative corporates in Ghana underpinned by an ethical ethos could make that a reality quickly - by sponsoring the printing of monthly editions of 'The Big Issue Ghana'. Oman Ghana - yen enma ensei da.
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