Tech Needs Girls, the Planet Needs Them More

Children and women are affected by climate change the most; technology transfer will help solve the crisis.

Somewhere in July this year, I received an invitation from my friend Regina Agyare; it wasn’t for a birthday party or a graduation ceremony. Regina is a world class Ghanaian software developer and the CEO of Soronko Solutions, a software developing company in Ghana. Soronko had started a project called ‘Tech Needs Girls’, a movement that is inspiring, empowering and training girls in communities in technology.

My task according to the invitation was to visit one of her Tech Needs Girls hub in Maamobi, a community in Accra, to talk to the girls about the environment. I had heard about these girls, some of whom were from very difficult backgrounds, but have broken many social barriers and already started coding under the tutelage of the Soronko team. I wasn’t particularly flattered by the invitation; I was humbled. Regina was connecting the dots. Children and women are affected by climate change the most; technology transfer will help solve the crisis.

But where do I start the conversation with these girls about the environment? Do I just talk about sanitation and proper waste disposal and leave, or do I paint them the bigger picture- climate change? Should I break down Julia Butterfly Hill’s powerful message on Disposability Consciousness into the simplest terms? How do I even tell them about the climate crisis? More than half of these girls are barely 15yrs; how would they come to terms with the reality? Would they believe me at all? These were questions that vibrated within my head as I made my way to the learning and training hub that afternoon.

When a team member from Soronko picked me up half way in a cab and we exchanged plesantaries, I got an inspiring assurance, “the girls are going to be happy to see you, they are really amazing”. Surely they were, and by then I had decided in my head to tell the story as it is.

I will tell them about the climate reality, the reality they must know now, the reality about the future created for them by past and present generations driven by greed, profit and insatiable economic injustice. “We’ve knocked back the ‘good’ times - the greed times – and now we are lurching about like drunkards trying to pretend we just need a cup of coffee and then we will be fine to drive”.

Then again I should be careful not to paint a picture of gloom, panic and despair. Our Chairman, Al Gore, admonishes all Climate Reality Leaders to present a message of faith in our generation to solve the crisis and hope for the future. I now know where to start. I won’t only tell the girls about switching their bulbs off when not in use, harvesting rain water or even avoiding wastage of water when they brush their teeth. 

I will also tell them about the sun, the light it gifts and how technology can harness that light to give electricity in their homes. I will tell them that is what will save the planet and will safeguard their technology-driven future.  Tech needs girls but the planet also needs them.

I had an awesome hour with the girls. The sunrays from the windows washed across my face as I attempted to explain solar energy. And when I was asked a question by one of the girls during the Q&A section about where else our electricity in our homes come from, I knew we had made progress.
I left the hub with a short message for the girls, “tech needs girls, but the planet needs you more”.

Of Climate Reality, Football and a Village I Love

I have not written a blog post the whole of 2014. This surprises me considering my deep affection for blogging. But life has been very busy, busier than I had imagined this year would be; and I could hardly keep track. One of my resolutions for this year was to visit 12 new villages in Ghana to talk to children and young people about the environment. My goal was to train a new generation of young people who are passionate about the climate and are driven enough to take action. The vision is to see the youth environmental movement spread to every nook and cranny of Ghana and I believe we could start from villages and peri-urban communities where environmental awareness is very low and opportunities extremely less.

Earlier this March, I became a Climate Reality Leader — personally trained by former US Vice President Al Gore, to educate the public about the causes, dangers and possible solutions to the global climate crisis. Johannesburg was a huge inspiration for me and the hundreds of people who flew from all over the world to learn from Chairman Gore.

At the Climate Reality Leadership Corps

My first Act of Leadership after Climate Reality was a presentation to the youth group of OrphanAid Africa, more than 70 young people between the ages of 18-26 who had chosen the environment as a topic to discuss for the month of March. To many of them, global warming was a distant term they only hear in literature and from the media; but to others too, it was a stark reality they were confirming once again through the photos of wild fires, drought and floods. By the time I finished the hour long session, the room was dead silent you could hear a pin drop. A young girl stood up and asked, “Sir, what can we do to stop global warming?”I smiled.

Climate Reality presentation for young people from OrphanAid Africa

Soon the time came to visit my first new village. I made a 7hrs journey to Amoako village in the Jasikan District of the Volta Region of Ghana. My friend Emmanuel had fallen in love with this awesome little community during his national service days. For the love of the underprivileged kids and the startling absence of opportunities to support their development, he chose to stay to serve the village. I wanted to see this village and meet these amazing children.

The road to Amoako village from Nketsi, the nearest village is 8km and can only be accessed by foot or a motor bike

I heard the boys of school going age in the village really loved football. Well, football is my second passions too, so why not play football and use soccer as a tool to talk about the environment?  Prince, my team member from the Ghana Youth Environmental Movement (GYEM) made the trip, and being a football addict himself, the stage was set. We had a great soccer game and afterwards an interactive chat about the environment laced with ice breakers. What a fulfilling day it was! Amoako is a village without electricity, we will travel back there in August to promote solar energy using football.

The Amoako village Eco-Soccer team

You Made Me A Better Person in 2013. Happy New Year!!

My last 2 Christmas' were very lonely. Two years ago, I spent Christmas Day sick and stuck in London Gatwick airport after eating a bad food in Istanbul-Turkey, throwing up miserably and causing so much discomfort to passengers and cabin crew. I was welcomed home in Birmingham the next day drained and dehydrated. Last year, I spent it at home in Ghana with my housemate in our little space in Odorkor. I was very broke after a hectic year of delivering more with less. We didn't cook any decent meal, we bought on the streets— a mirror of the reality of millions who have no chance at a simple Christmas meal of rice, stew and dry fish.

This year hasn't been particularly special and perfect, but I have gone through 2013 coming in contact with people who have loved, cared, taught and supported me in diverse ways, of which I'm grateful about and want to show my deepest gratitude. Gratitude comes from the word 'gratis', which means 'free'. So in essence, I'm grateful for everything all of you reading this note freely impacted and invested in my life. "Gratitude is the freeing expression of a free heart toward one who freely gave".

2013 was like a dragon with a gift in it's mouth. Taming the animal was to take 365 days of learning, living and leading. I am not saying I didn't achieve anything, what I mean is that our maturity as leaders could take our entire lifetime. We will land, but we will still have weaknesses, no one is ubermensch. I've always seen transformation as a complete change from acorn to an oak tree; or like the sight of a giant ultra modern hospital funded by the P.E.A.C.E Plan to replace a torturing former site of genocide in Rwanda. But what about our daily struggles, suffering and sorrows? They are also part of our transformation! So we shouldn't discard them, we should share them. Always focusing and sharing our successes might generate competition, but continuously sharing our struggles promote community.

We've thought about leadership to be all about influence, charisma and having followers. But how about it becoming the other way round— sharing, supporting and serving others with our entire humanity. How about being a servant, leading from a position of weakness? How about being a listerner, the art of influencing people with our ears? How about avoiding unproductive arguments that sap our energy and focusing on winning people rather than arguments. I have purposed in my heart to learn and practice these.

In the year 2014, I have no huge expectations to be honest. I have only a revelation to spend time building my relationships with everyone around me. My good friend John-Son Oei, a recipient of the Augustman Magazine Man of the Year award and one of the most successful entrepreneurs in Malaysia today who builds houses for poor people opened my eyes to an important truth we often ignore as leaders, as we shared our traditional end of year lessons— "the value of a team set in the right foundations of love, trust and emphasis on relationships over performance".

So that will be my priority. And building relationship with people requires time investment. I see time as John Taylor's "Chronophage", outside Cambridge’s Taylor Library of Corpus Christi College. It has a grasshopper with a huge chomping mouth eating up every minute with a half swag. Time is boring but it's the most expensive gift we can give others because they cannot pay for it.

So many things occurred in 2013; I was transformed by the love and focus of Saddleback Church; the Environmental Movement ran a highly successful campaign against coal in Ghana; I attended my first Bar Camp; Ronny got married; My Australia friend living in Ghana, Eleanor made me lasagne after 18months of not eating it; and Anna Rose sent me her first book 'Madlands' from far away Australia which was to transform my activism and convert my friend who was a climate skeptic.

In 2014, I look forward to leading and serving the Ghana Youth Environmental Movement (GYEM), supporting Pass-A-Book-On, Dress-A-Kid, Share-Your-Lunch, Helplan, AYW-G and all the great initiatives up and running here. At GYEM, we call it our 'Year of Growth'— advancing our passion, purpose and partnership and building leaders of courage, competence and character to shift power with tools, techniques and technology. I'm looking forward to our first ever National Power Shift 2014 and Exponential 2014.

I also look forward to the World Cup in Brasil, "the land of keepie-uppies, sarongs & thongs". But before all that, I don't want to miss the reality of thanking everyone reading this note, because throughout 2013 in the midst of the fun, success, pain, pressure, problems, trials, tests, temptations and tribulations, you loved me, you supported me, you chided me, you criticised me, but in all that you didn't make me bitter, you made me a BETTER person.

Happy New Year!!!

Written in the Language of Dead Whales

“The era of procrastination, of half-measures, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays is coming to its close. In its place we are entering a period of consequences.”

There are two different kinds of people you are likely to encounter in most ecological dialogues. Those who believe the catastrophes happening to the planet are naturally designed and those who know human activities are largely to be blamed. The first group retreats to the walls of denial, the latter is found within the spheres of activism.

When the Ghana Youth Environmental Movement (GYEM) launched its price for pollution campaign earlier this year and demanded that those who pollute the environment pay for that pollution, an unusual creature was to be the mascot for the campaign—a whale. During the few media encounters, the Movement explained that its research team suspected a strong linkage between the death of whales within the past 2 years and the oil exploration going on at the Western coast of Ghana. Government and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) thought otherwise.

The laughing blue whale, locally named ‘KwaBonsu’ has walked on the streets, hugged people, met government officials, and delivered a simple powerful campaign message—each dead whale carries a strong warning! Just like the melting ice caps in the Arctic, the sum total of what is happening in our waters is written in the language of dead whales.

Several months on, a total of 16 whales have washed ashore in area where oil exploration takes place, and the EPA is still in denial. Protecting the environment shouldn't have been political but denying out rightly the possible and likely cause of something without any evidence to show the actual otherwise cause takes us back into the streets of ritual politics. It renders any public interest in the issue laughingly insignificant.

Photo credit: e.tv Ghana

Campaigners are passion driven and genuinely interested in the impacts dead whales are likely to have on our food chain, so the idea that ‘we have heard your concerns so go home’ is a hard slap on the face. When problems of the environment are brought forward for discussions in this country, the government postpones solutions and the media switches on daily political debates. What happened to hope?

Our profit-driven economic system shuts our eyes to the one important factor that makes economics meaningful—the ecosystem. What are the impacts of this pollution on the communities along the coast and to what extent are they detected and mitigated? What is happening to our fishes down the sea and what kind of food do our fishermen bring to our table? What is the value of the ecosystem services unpaid for and yet been destroyed with impunity? What is the cost of this pollution to public health? The answers are written in the language of the dead whales. 

On the Side of Tomorrow Against Coal Power

"If we want our voices to be heard, we have to shout very loud" - Nana Abena Afriyie Kwarkye

On a wet morning of Monday July 15, about 40 campaigners from the Ghana Youth Environmental Movement (GYEM) embarked on a journey to fight for tomorrow— a battle against coal. The Ministry of Energy had received a proposal from a Chinese Energy Group to construct a 700MW coal-fired power plant in Ghana. The immediate response from the youth environmental movement was a loud big no; coal power isn't the future young people in Ghana deserve. So we lined up in-front of the Ministry’s facility with our placards, signs and messages and rejected coal power. We took the side of tomorrow against coal.

The argument of the coal industry and its supporters is a weak one modeled on economics; having lost the debate centuries ago on the grounds of health and ecosystem. Unfortunately and fortunately for activists, their own economic argument continues to be exposed as a reeking hoopla that flies in their faces no matter how they slice it.

They argue that coal is cheap, readily available and as such a dependable commodity for power. And so when the Communications Director of the Ministry of Energy, who received our submission against the proposal on behalf of the Minister, argued there and then that “coal is not the dirtiest fossil fuel”, we were assured it was another lost debate.

With its devastating effect on human health and catastrophic impact on the environment and planet, coal is now an economic albatross, China as a classic text book example— cost of pollution from coal to the Chinese government runs in excess of $100 billion per year. This is more than twice the GDP of Ghana. How worse can this get?

So why then has the coal industry still convinced people to deny science, reason, facts and reality; choosing profit over people and economics over ecosystem? I leave the answers for you to discern. The reality is that the fossil fuel industry is heavily funded and as an icing on their cake, they enjoy subsidies. Therefore being pitched as activists against dirty energy in a mortal combat is probably equivalent to dismantling a skyscraper with a carpentry hammer.  But not really, we can build a movement that can win the fight for a green future.

We need to build a movement that is commensurate to and/or more powerful than dirty energy to shift power towards tomorrow. Our movement won’t win campaigns overnight but holding hands and standing strong for a clean future, joined by our passion and courage give us a lot of hope and hope is everything we need. We are a movement so we are willing to do the difficult, the different, the dissenting and the daring—that is courage.

In our submission to the Ministry of Energy, we made it very clear that coal-fired plants do not represent the future we deserve; one that is powered by clean energy and to live in a less polluted or a pollution-free environment. And we are going to demand it, not only for our future but for that of unborn generations. That is justice— to choose the side of tomorrow against coal power!

10 W/Men Strong can Shift Power towards Tomorrow

“Those who say it cannot be done should get out of the way of those already doing it”

When I spent time with the Occupy Movement at St. Pauls and Finsbury Square in 2011, I learnt one thing that has guided my activism till date— caring is everyone’s business no matter rich or poor, free or oppressed; because a time comes in everyone’s life that you will need someone to fight for you. The moment we stop fighting for ourselves is the moment we lose our humanity.

So when #1SimpleStep was birthed to fight for ourselves, I didn't only think it was just, I thought it was only ethical for me to join.

The only thing that gives credibility to any movement is the same one thing that ensures its sustainability— the grassroots. So on 19^th April, 2013, when 10 of us walked in front of the Flagstaff House into the building to deliver our letters and concerns to the Presidency and leadership, it wasn't about getting masses of people to take that step, it was about that simple step being taken by a community of the masses. We were not 10 strong w/men; we were 10 w/men strong.

What #1SimpleStep achieved was building trust that healed our fears and sharing our struggles that built a community.  To put this into perspective, every grassroot movement that has ever shifted power has been built on the foundations of trust and a sense of community.

That said, corruption is not the cause of our poverty and mess in this country, it is just a symptom of it. The cause is not even apathy which is always on trial in our mouths. The real cause is LETHARGY. We ritualize the ballot box and elect people to represent us in various leaderships without demanding accountability, transparency and sustainability. We do really care but we don’t care so much, we don’t care enough.

#1SimpleStep didn’t only break the spiral of silence; it proved that the only 3 things we need to shift power in this country are faith, love and persistence, which are heavily grounded on a conscience. And by being peaceful in nature, we are a conscience and hence we are stronger. This is the first evidence that we shouldn't just walk the talk; we should also talk the talk and walk the walk.

Organized dissent and peaceful protest are the mother of all transformational change and so we are at the right side of history, change will come as we press on. We don’t only need to talk about hope in dire circumstances, we always have to pursue, practice and preach it.

History was written last Friday and when it is re-written in future, @GHANAmomoni, @MutomboDaPoet, @Kwabena, @attigs, @wrathymarcel, @kinnareads, @ghanabakwabena, @Ek0wMaIsSe, @ganyobisaki, @MawuliTsikata and Sowah would have shifted power towards tomorrow. Keep shifting power!

“Hope is not a matter of personal psychology, in the midst of uncertainty it is the most strategic response, the need to be optimistic is the most important political decision anyone can take”

Will Ghana Ever Change? Doubts and Hope

“Change is a campaign, not a decision”

When the issue of change is discussed in this country, 3 main arguments arise. Below are these and my own counter arguments:

1. “Brighten the corner where you are” and change will happen

It is true that we ought to brighten the corner where we are, but within the context of the mess we have in this country, this quote is anemic to catalyze a transformational change. We need a force that is either commensurate or powerful than the prevailing crisis, rather than a candle light procession (pun intended). We have to deliberately plan for that force to emerge. Its only 2 years more to reaching the target year for achieving the MDGs and we have failed woefully brightening the corner where we are.

2. “We need to change the mindset of people first to see change”

This is a feel-good saying; it pats warm water on the skin waiting for the cold weather to disappear. I’m not saying it’s not true but the fact is that we already have enough people with a mindset to catalyze the transformational change we are looking for. We can’t change the mindset of everyone and we don’t need to do that our entire lifetime. What we need is for the critical mass to drive the rest along in an ocean’s way. We have to be infectious. So far the critical mass is plagued with the deadliest disease in history- lethargy; simply put, we are lazy to stand up and fight for change.  We are still on a journey to la la lands.

3. “Be the change you want to see in the world”

This quote has been one of my personal best since I became an activist as a high school graduate. But the question is would the status quo ever be the change we want to see it be? Would politicians be disciples to this mantra? I represent the naysayer in this context. “Change is a campaign, not a decision”. In short, every transformational change that has ever taken place in the history of this world was campaigned for. It goes beyond making a personal decision and committing to one’s own targets, it is about building a community to persistently demand the change from the status quo.

The above points already made, it is very important for any change maker to note that every transformational change would be a political one, but that change cannot come from politics unless the masses lead politicians to make it. Politicians and businesses are the best of friends; they are both ‘active opponents and passive recipients’ of any fundamental change. They know what to do to bring change but wouldn’t do it because they benefit from the crisis and a transition towards change is very expensive to them.  However they are the ones who will also benefit the most when the change finally occurs.

That said, what will change this country would not be the latest sophisticated revolution in the ICT industry or an immaculate and unrehearsed analysis of government policy. What would catalyze a transformational change in Ghana would be organized dissent, the mother of all social reforms. ‘The inertia of the status quo requires the inertia of dissent’. We can talk about cohort replacement, argue about the fossil fuel industry internalizing the externalities and discuss how extreme air pollution affects maternal heath and infant mortality. But we all know very well that it took the Occupy Movement to expose the deep cracks of neo-liberal capitalism and ‘subject it to proper scrutiny and challenge, within the context of their own local circumstances’, from Zuccoti Park to the City of London.

Having made the point above, historically, violence has failed utterly in delivering any fundamental change, the reason the Arab rising wasn’t successful though it got rid of some tyrants.  The greatest tools to drive any campaign for change are ‘non violence, love, persistence and faith’. We have a conscience and that makes us very powerful.

“In market-driven societies, the philosopher Herbert Marcuse once said, protest is often treated like any other commodity that’s consumed and disposed of. His advice? Make sure your action can’t readily be devoured, digested and discredited. Instead, be sure that those you’re trying to reach have to deal with what you’re driving at”.

We need to build the movements, we need to run the campaigns, and we need to shift power. The summits, seminars, workshops and conferences are good for capacity building, but to make a transformational change is to win campaigns on the streets. We are doing extremely well with several social action and entrepreneurial initiatives but every transformational change results in a power shift and we haven’t shifted power yet.

Fifteen years ago, Julia Butterfly Hill embarked on a tree-sit, ‘rooted in her acute vision of a wounded world longing for nonviolent healing’, a powerful campaign for change. We read Mahatma Gandhi’s long walk to the sea full of suspense, the Civil Rights Movement’s freedom rides, the Divestment Movement that brought apartheid to its knees and became a model against the tobacco industry.

Currently, campaigns have put on the same hat with the same philosophy and we have the opportunity to learn from them no matter where we live to drive change. Many people argue that ‘clicktivism is the marketization of social change’, we also counter argue that ‘we have found logic at the market place’.

At the Ghana Youth Environmental Movement (http://gyemgh.wordpress.com/), our theme for this year is our ‘Year of Environmental Power Shift’. We don’t know when change will come but one thing we do know is the fact that robust and innovative campaigns will deliver it someday. And with hope on our side, though the future remains unknown, the wind continues to blow in the direction of human progress.

“First, they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win”.