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Believe In Ghana, It’s The Only Country We Have – CEO to Ghanaian Youth.

“The future looks very bright because you are the future and irrespective of the daily challenges, I urge you to continue to believe in Ghana, because it is the only country we have”,
Mr. Ransford Antwi, the Chief Executive Officer for Suncity Radio, in Sunyani has encouraged Ghanaian youth.

However, Mr. Antwi quizzed how prepared are the youth to take up leadership mantle and what type of leadership should the public expect from them.
He was speaking at a Guidance Conference held at Eusbett International Conference Centre in Sunyani.

The conference was organized under the auspices of Mr. Kennedy Agyapong, the Member of Parliament (MP) for Asin Central Constituency. 

It was a platform created for the participants, particularly youth in the country to get entrepreneural inspiration from the speakers who have made it in life and Mr. Kennedy Agyapong to positively impact them and create his like.

On that note, he expressed deep appreciation to Mr. Kennedy Agyapong for his kind move to create such a platform to revamp the spirit of the Ghanaian youth in entrepreneurship way.

Copy of Mr. Antwi’s speech below

Even now, some advocates are pushing for the increment of their daily feeding fees but the young upright, graduate or trained artisan wakes up with no hope of where to even turn to for a bowl of meal, he added.

We therefore cannot cease to appreciate you, Hon Kennedy Agyapong for thinking about us here; we owe you tonnes of appreciation, we are grateful to you.

To you the youths gathered here, I urge you to make the best out of this day, and leave here heavily filled with a liberated and charged mind that is willing to succeed albeit whatever challenges that may erupt in your life. 

As a continent with beautiful people, heavily endowed natural resources and most importantly having the youngest people in the world, we are so much blessed with whatever we require to develop and detach ourselves from the doldrums of poverty.

Let me commend the Government of Ghana for the intervention that has been breathed into the system through the You Start Programme.
I urge the youths in the Bono Region to embrace it to lift them up.

HOW WELL DO YOU EVEN KNOW YOURSELF AS A YOUTH?
It is very important and worthy to note that you cannot evolve, if you have no idea about who you are.

Who exactly you are, influences you in diverse ways about things you aspire to achieve in life.

So as you want to chase your dreams in life, note that dreams are dreamt by people, so what kind of person are you, once again to even dream?

Self-discovery and identification are the twin necessary reality checks that you have to have as a budding youth. 

Knowing who you are also means that accepting who you are enables you to know exactly how you can build, weave and work towards your dream in life.

Being a young man from Sunyani Area 2, was a constant reminder that there was little room for mistakes once I took off. 

It explains why people say I am too serious in everything set out to do.

Knowing who you are shall cause you to be vigilant and cautious in choosing your kind of company and the kind of bandwagon to be on board.

This would embolden you to create your guiding principles that would steer you up in life. So before proceeding, I want to ask you, who are you? Think about it.

Without knowing your strengths and weaknesses there is no way you can position yourself to capture available opportunities and rid yourself or manage yourself from any external threat.
Knowing yourself is a must; in order to develop a strong mentality to drive your goals/passion.

CONNECTIONS IN LIFE
The youth today are requesting to be shown the way and linked to people who have assisted others to succeed but are never ready to learn how such relations developed, grew and sustained before being others’ lifeline to success. 

This is a clear manifestation of the fact that young people are not patient enough to learn to crawl, walk and run in the end.

Let us be clear that success is never an event but a process of varied experiences. How can someone direct you to a person who may not be able to trust you?

Trust is not transferable, if someone trusts me it is based on the person’s experience with me and for that matter trust built in that process cannot be passed on to you.
It is important to sincerely ask the right questions to be able to get the desired answers.

Helpers are not golden nuggets we pick on the ground; a real helper will take you through a school of proving your trust so let us rather position ourselves in integrity, seriousness, honesty, diligence, and the needed virtues to attract worthy assistance and support from others. 

Mr. Herbert Mensah did not just one day wake up to assist me to become Brong Ahafo agent for Nokia Phones in the early 2000s. He developed deep confidence and trust in me to merit that assistance from him. 

I had before then served him in several capacities including running some errands for him. How could he just link me to a powerful brand like Nokia when he has no idea about my integrity and ability to make it work without disgracing him?

As a young man growing up, I was selected to represent Ghana at the International Youth Parliament in Australia. 

When I got to the Australian High Commission to work on my Visa was told the Visa was to be acquired in Kenya, and therefore advised me about how to apply. 

In the end, I had the visa and travelled to Australia. Upon my return I went back to the High Commission to thank the officers there for their assistance.

This act of courtesy thrilled them and caused them to lead me to meet with the High Commissioner, they were thinking they might not even return.

I have since become a friend of the High Commission and three (3) High Commissioners have visited Sunyani through me. 

This relationship has yielded positive results through which the Sunyani Youth Development Association (SYDA) was funded by the Australian High Commission’s Direct Aid Programme to support their Youth Training Programme.

How could a young man from Sunyani Area Two (2) manage to invite various High Commissioners to visit Sunyani in his personal capacity? It took a little act of courtesy and appreciation.

How often do you even look back as a young man or lady to say thank you?
You may be linked up to someone but the responsibility shall be on you to build the required credibility and integrity to merit its fruit.
Connections are good but genuine connections are built and not easily transferred because it is never possible.

Let us disabuse our minds from this mantra of show me your helpers and rather stay objective and true to ourselves. You are your own road map to meeting your connections and the needed links in life.

DILIGENCE, HONESTY AND INTEGRITY
Diligence is the only guarantee to be successful. No lazy youth can dream of being successful in life. 
It is important to be smart in your approach, unfortunately the word SMART is being abused in our generation. Being a swindler does not make you a smart person.

To be smart is to be intelligently impactful to bring about positive change in the lives of others through business, ideas creation and so on.
It is never about cleverly cheating people and taking advantage of them for your own personal good.

As a budding youth, you must have this understanding of who a real smart person is.

Show me a diligent and an integrity driven youth and will show you a resolute successful person in the making.

Success is never a transient short-lived experience but a sustainable endurance of maintaining and improving the status quo of his/her business,
Without integrity all your hard work shall amount to nothing as a starter.

That is why I am beseeching you to check yourself to know your shortfalls and inefficiencies to enable you to correct them.

After helping Ghana to land Coach Ratomir Djukovic, who would eventually qualify us to the 2006 World Cup, became a good friend/advisor.
 When his first pay cheque could not go through, I still encouraged him to stay calm and focus on his qualifier match.

Engineered a couple of phone calls through Yaw Ampofo Ankrah for the likes of Dr Kofi Amoah etc to intervene. 
The coach was eventually paid. 

With integrity, it may not matter your age, you can still counsel someone above you to make things better for us all.

YOUTH IN POLITICS
In our efforts toward nation building, it is being advocated that the youth must be given the space to have access to governance through politics. 

Yes, it is true that the youth must be given some kind of space to participate and contribute towards our nation building
Most importantly is to assert the reason for having the interest to do politics.

It is important to acknowledge that as a youth, your contribution to nation building through your political participation should be driven by the desire to improve the lives of the people. 

If the focus is to enrich yourself then you are going to be a definite contributor to the under development of the country.

Political power is not for the opulence of it but most importantly how it is able to solve societal problems and free the people from the bondage and doldrums of poverty that has become some kind of albatross hanging on the necks of many people in the country.

As a young politician you must understand that the country is a poor one that needs to be rescued and that your aspirations, ideals and contributions should be bound with the belt of integrity and the desire to build others up. 

If the focus is not genuinely towards the positive impact that you can bring about, please do not get in there to hurt our nation.

If you are genuine with the right intentions, your success awaits you in the end.

Let me hereby emphasize that doing politics is not about supplanting others and telling lies about others to our supposed political godfathers.

 You have to be resolute, respectful and guide them because your political godfathers may miss certain things due to oversight and sometimes their personal pettiness that is why you have to intervene.

 It is never wrong for you to draw their attention. Help them with ideas that will help them improve our lives as a people. Don’t go and lie to them about others.

I remember at an NPP manifesto launch in the year 2008 in Kumasi, was invited by the then Information Minister Hon Asamoah Boateng, when got there the programme had started but checking from the programme itinerary, it had President Kuffour’s name but he had travelled then, and unfortunately the Vice President name was conspicuously missing from the programme itinerary even though he was sitting there live and so I asked why?

This question raised some discussions here and there and immediately he was included.

Surprisingly, H.E Aliu Mahama of blessed memory had come with a prepared speech. 
He ended up delivering one of the most beautiful speeches on that day.

Learn to show decorum and respect opposing views because at the end of the day politics must not produce any rancour but development. 

As a young communicator for the NPP during a radio discussions programme, I used the wrong choice of words on one of NDC’s reps but realizing it approached him after the programme to apologize.

You do not contribute to your party’s development with lies and fanning of internal feuds but rather, you contribute with ideas, writing of articles about your government’s project and decent radio discussions. 

Let me dare say that, you can politely criticise some internal decisions you may not agree with. Politics should not produce tamed cowards but resolute and bold young politicians who can contribute to national development.

OPPORTUNITIES
Most breakthroughs in life are embedded in some small seeds of humble beginnings. 

Many youths have relegated some occupational trades in the country to the background as though they are a preserve of some group of people and for that matter do not make any effort to step in to create jobs for themselves. 

It will interest you to know that you own public toilets, something I am very proud of.

It is time to cut off the occupational stereotype and rather use creativity, packaging and diligence to create your own enterprise.

CONCLUSION
I wouldn’t conclude without admonishing you as a youth to be mindful that your youthful years and all the advantages attributed thereof would not stay with you forever.

Each year, month, week, day, minute and second takes away your youthfulness, therefore make it count to you and make the best that your strength as a youth can guarantee for you. 

Cut off the excesses and compete with no one except moving your plans in life.

In thinking about opportunities, I want to remind you that there is nothing new under the sun, you can look around you and retouch and package our foods like waakye, kelewele, T.Z and many that you can think of.

In fact you can have a lot of opportunities by thinking through how to do our traditional way of doing things differently to suit the contemporary generation by our style and orientation.

 If you would sit back to rethink about this, there are countless ideas that you can generate to impact the world and thereby enrich yourself.

Remember, whosoever solves a general societal problem creates money too.

Opportunities may abound but they begin with you, because at the end of the day, it takes only you to break forth.