By Kodjo Adams
Accra, Aug. 31, GNA – Dr Kofi Osei-Kusi, President, Pan-African Leadership Institute, has encouraged Ghanaians to engage in volunteer activities because it provides the opportunity to gain valuable working skills while developing important social skills.
Dr Osei-Kusi stated that volunteering was a key step on one’s path to becoming a well-developed professional, empathetic human being and inspiring leader.
He said this on Tuesday at this year’s Edify Community Transformation Conference (ECTP) in Accra on the theme: “Caring for the Community and One Another: The Role of Educators and Learners.”
Volunteer work, Dr Osei-Kusi stressed, helped to bridge the gap between college life and real-world experience.
In the pursuit of greatness, he said service to humanity must come before money, saying volunteerism must be driven by love to make the world a better place without expecting personal financial benefits.
He called on the citizenry to exhibit a sense of radical love for humanity to develop society and the nation.
Dr Osei-Kusi admonished Ghanaians to be generous, not only to the Church, but to our neighbours, emphasizing that true giving was always a sacrifice and a secret to opening more opportunities to one’s life.
He urged the citizens to forgive one another and forge ahead to develop a united nation, saying, “we need to pray for those who attack us and not wish them dead.”
Reverend Joyce Aryee, the Executive Director, Salt and Light Ministry, said educators must play their duties of providing guidance to students and develop positive, compassionate, empathetic people to contribute to society’s growth.
She said research in human development showed that the sense of empathy, and caring compassion was present from early life of children and that educators need to help them at every stage of their childhood and lifecycle to nurture them to realise their full potential.
Rev Aryee urged students to take their studies seriously and justified the investment made by their parents for a brighter future.
Ms Florence Adjoa Ansah-Asare, the Incoming Country Director, Edify, an international NGO, said the organisation worked with 12 countries in Africa and Latin America with private schools across to provide a Christ-Centred solution to the global education crisis.
“We support these schools through training, providing access to loans and tools to improve the quality of education and enhance education technology,” she said.
She commended the schools for the creativity, development of skills and initiative, virtues such as love, kindness, and relationships inculcated in the life of its leaders, teachers and students.
Mr Michael Adu-Carol, Project Coordinator, Edify, said the ECTP was an initiative of the Edify Christian Transformation Programme to encourage school leaders, teachers and students to engage in school community projects.
The project, he said, was an unpaid service initiated by the primary stakeholders of the school to meet a need, solving community-based problems or causing a transformation within and outside the school community.
GNA