MAN ENOUGH: Fatherhood as a Sacred Responsibility Every Man is Armed For | By Rev. Fr. George Ehusani & Dr. Yaw Perbi

Introduction

Father’s Day is marked annually on the third Sunday of June in many countries across the world. It is a fitting day not only to celebrate the gift of our fathers (and husbands), but also to highlight some of the elements of the unique and sacred vocation of fatherhood. As responsible fathers ourselves (by God’s grace), we take this opportunity to celebrate fatherhood and to encourage all and sundry that what we have been called for, we have been simultaneously designed for and divinely equipped enough to accomplish.

 
 

The Source of Fatherhood

In many religious traditions, God the Almighty Creator is recognised as the Pre-eminent Father. God is the One to whom the title of Father truly belongs in an original and primary sense, because God is the Source, the Creator and the Sustainer of the Universe. Human beings are only called fathers in a derivative, participatory, imitative and secondary sense, since in some way through procreation, human agents do partake in the generative process. From this point of view, the fatherhood vocation is a profound and an inestimable privilege for the adult male species. But this privilege of sharing in the human generative process and being addressed as father, like the Almighty Father, comes with critical responsibilities that cannot be shirked on a wide scale without significant deleterious consequences for the entire society and for multiple generations.

For the purposes of this article,  by fatherhood we refer to all men, fathers and fathers-to-be, biological and functional alike. Fatherhood is a profound phenomenon that calls for a great measure of accountability on those who knowingly assume the task, or those who have the task foisted upon them by circumstances. We can describe fatherhood as a function, and not simply a title or a name. The father plays critical, irreplaceable roles that shape the lives of the children. He is the progenitor, the source of identity, and the one who enables the children to have a definite sense of self. He lays the foundation for the children that leaves a long lasting impact on future generations. The father is the primary provider, the sustainer, the protector, the guardian, the teacher, and the role model of those who call him father.  He is the emotional anchor and the wellspring of stability for not only the children, but also the wife and others who live with them. The father inspires the children, nurturing their dreams and aspirations, encouraging them to reach for the stars and pursue their passions and God-given purpose. He instils confidence and builds self-esteem, paving the way for his children’s success in life.

 
 

The State of Fatherhood

Fatherhood is characterised by love and tenderness, but also discipline, decisiveness, courage and sacrifice. Fathers ideally possess an innate instinct to prioritise the safety and wellbeing of the members of their families over their own, ensuring that the wife and the children are shielded from the vagaries of life. With their effort to provide for the family, fathers teach their children the value of hard work, responsibility, diligence, integrity and perseverance; and in this way, equipping the children with the required tools to navigate life’s inevitable challenges and disruptive circumstances. The father is the source of stability and the rock-solid shoulder to lean on, amid the chaos, the insecurity, the instability and the uncertainties of life. He is the source of encouragement, reassurance, and hope, at the most difficult times in the life of the family members.  Indeed, fatherhood is a godly enterprise. The fatherhood vocation is an invitation to live out in the concrete circumstances of family life, the human potential for responsibility, commitment, deferred gratification, courage, and sacrificial (selfless) love.

Yet, the number one crisis of the Twenty First Century appears to be the absence of the fatherhood role model. Many young people today are “fatherless,” not because they have no male parent alive, but because their male parent has either been completely absent from their lives, or they have been a source of scandal and trauma, and they are remembered only with pain, regret, and resentment. Thus, often lacking in models of positive masculinity to emulate in their growing years, many young men are today struggling with a variety of character defects that amount to negative masculinity, including the psycho-emotional abuse of their wives, actual physical battering, and remorseless infidelity. Many young men have little or no sense of commitment to their families or responsibility for the children they have brought into the world.

Many children have indeed had their innocent minds defiled and their delicate sensibilities assaulted, as they watched their fathers beat their mothers or heard them vomit venomous invectives on the ones they called their wives. While many young men struggle with what they saw in their formative years, and sometimes they have ended up exhibiting the same traits of negative masculinity in their own marital relationships, many young women on the other hand, have grown up with deep-seated resentment and hateful feelings against the male species in general, on account of what they saw as gross injustices and inequities, or glaring imbalance in power relations between their fathers and their mothers. In many cases what they witnessed as children is the callous and blatant abuse of power and privilege by the menfolk. And it doesn’t help that in the effort to emancipate and affirm women and girls over the last half-a-century, positive masculinity has suffered both direct and collateral damage.

The global celebration of Father’s Day this year is a most fitting occasion to remind the men—the fathers, the would-be fathers and the father-figures in our society—to spare a moment to reflect on the enormous privilege and the sacred responsibility that come with fatherhood, and to work in concert with other individuals and groups, towards overcoming the gross anomaly of toxic masculinity that contradicts all the lofty ideals of fatherhood outlined above. Far from being a bully, the husband who often doubles as father, is ideally “one who cultivates, nourishes, tills, and tends” the wife and the children. The male headship of families in our society is not something to be achieved through domination and coercion, but through a high sense of responsibility, commitment, and sacrifice. Today, experts in the Christian Scriptures hold that even the allegedly controversial statement of St. Paul in Ephesians Chapter 5, that wives should be submissive to their husbands, is (in the context of the entire passage and in the context of the teachings and practical examples of Christ), not an endorsement of any form of misogyny, to be expressed in psychological abuse, wife battering or domestic terrorism. Instead, the husband is admonished to love, cherish, and honour his wife.

 
 

The Supply of Fatherhood

While gender-based violence (and such) tends to be associated with males’ abuse of power, perceived or real, a concomitant but often missed cause of such negative masculinity actually comes from a place of inadequacy. Hurting people hurt people, insecure people make others insecure too. Men who abuse others often do so from a place of feeling inferior or being too small in the head or heart to handle perceived or real threats to their person or towards what they care about. On this Fathers’ Day, we call on all men—fathers and fathers-to-be alike, both biological and functional fathers—to know that they have all that is needed and have all that it takes for positive masculinity. You are enough, man enough. Abusing others doesn’t make you a man; it actually makes you less of a man. Even less of a human.

In encouraging men to rise up to life’s challenges and to live out their God-given identity and purpose, the expression used in many contexts is “man up.” However, inherent in ‘manning up’ is the danger that one has to harness some ethereal resources and put forward a personality that is neither them nor theirs. On this Father’s Day, again, we sound a clarion call and offer an alternative paradigm to ‘manning up’: man enough! You are man enough. Where you feel or fear a lack of wisdom, courage or strength, call to the ultimate source and intricate designer of fatherhood Himself: Father God. Author and apostle James concurs: If any of you lacks wisdom [to guide him through a decision or circumstance], he is to ask of [our benevolent] God, who gives to everyone generously and without rebuke or blame, and it will be given to him. (James 1:5, Amplified Bible) Being a good man isn’t just good for others, it is good for you. One has such a sense of fulfillment and happiness having accomplished the purpose of one’s being.

 
 

Conclusion

Finally, recognising that many young men today have not had the good fortune of being raised or mentored by exemplary fatherhood role models, perhaps individuals and organisations, and especially religious groups, who are sufficiently invested in the promotion of positive masculinity for the wholesome development of our society, must begin to take on the project of healing our youths of their traumatic experiences with toxic masculinity while growing up, and forming the boys particularly in the above outlined principles and practices, values and virtues of ideal fatherhood. Men, you are man enough. Happy Father’s Day.

 

 

This op-ed is an initiative of the Ford Foundation Office of West Africa towards ending Gender Based Violence.

The writers:

 Rev. Fr. George Ehusani, Executive Director of Lux Terra Leadership Foundation, Abuja Nigeria.

Dr. Yaw Perbi, Founder and Global CEO of The HuD Group, an international human development NGO (www.thehudgroupglobal.org).

50 Inspiring Living Leaders

Dear Leader,

If you haven’t yet checked out the first 10% of the 50 Inspiring Living Leaders on the Perbi Executive Leadership Education (PELÉ) website, catch up quickly and get some oxygen for you leadership journey:

1. STRIVE MASIYIWA—Strife. Success. Significance: https://perbiexecutive.com/strife-success-significance…/

2. JOYCE ARYEE—A Nation’s Aunt: https://perbiexecutive.com/a-nations-aunt-joyce-r-aryee/

3. INDRA NOOYI—The Business Leader and Strategic Thinker Who Transformed PepsiCo: https://perbiexecutive.com/indra-nooyi-the-business…/

4. BERNARD AVLE—The Relevant Voice of Reason: https://perbiexecutive.com/bernard-avle-the-relevant…/

5. BILL GEORGE—Authentic Leader of Leaders: https://perbiexecutive.com/bill-george-authentic-leader…/

6. MARY ASHUN—Transformational Leader of Re-Imagined Education: https://perbiexecutive.com/mary-ashun-transformational…/

This 50 Inspiring Living Leaders series highlights current influencers who are succeeding in leadership, integrity, family or entrepreneurship in whatever field and exhibit most, if not all, of our values of PELÉ. We value people, growth, particularity, excellence, success, authenticity and significance. These stories are largely written in terms of growth, success and significance in leadership, integrity, family and  entrepreneurship. While we do our best to receive personal references about each leader, most of our research and writing is based on literature review of publicly-available information. As authorities in leadership, we are fully aware that there is no such thing as a perfect leader, and leaders may have their flaws, but we choose to celebrate these inspiring living leaders for their achievements outlined in our series. Having said that, should you happen to have any incontrovertible evidence that any of our featured leaders does not fit our bill of an authentic leader, please write to us at info@perbiexecutive.com. Our vision at PELÉ is a flourishing global ecosystem of authentic leaders characterised by healthy growth, holistic success and lasting significance.

No Limit On God-sized Visions; But For Our Egos & Logos.

The year I turned 40 is the same year that Africa became the continent with the most Christians in the world. Wanting both momentous occasions to mean something beyond a year and a number, I had been musing over the idea of an ‘African Centre for Global Mission Mobilization’ for serious research and intellectual power to be brought to bear on this African phenomenon which is undoubtedly the work of God’s Spirit.

In fact, in the first quarter of 2018 I even initiated discussions with Steve Shadrach’s Centre for Mission Mobilization about the possibility of partnering to pull off an ‘African Centre for Global Mission Mobilization’ in Ghana. At that time, I was still President of International Student Ministries Canada and incidentally had my entire Senior Leadership Team visiting Ghana from Canada. In the presence of my ISMC team, friends and family from near and far, during my fortieth birthday dinner on 16^th March 2018 at the Fiesta Royale Hotel in Accra, Ghana we actually formally launched the idea (or should I say effort?). I had no clue how it was going to pan out but I sensed it was not just a good idea; it was a God idea.

 

THE BRAZIL BENEDICTION

Unbeknownst to me, Mr. Ebenezer Aryee, a Ghanaian health worker domiciled in the United Kingdom and serving on the board of Pioneers Pioneers UK, had also been independently pondering over the prospect of an ‘Africa Centre for Mission Mobilization and Research’ since about 2017 and mooted the idea to Pioneers UK as well. Incidentally, Eben and I first met in person at the Global Mobilization Network’s conference in Dubai that same year but had no such discussions.

Come 2019, at the next biennial Global Mobilization Network’s conference in Sao Paolo (Brazil) in December 2019, both of us found out that we had a similar vision from the Lord and decided to explore what a possible convergence and synergy could result in for the sake of the greater Kingdom of God. Incidentally, that is the same conference at which upon hearing Dr. T.V. Thomas’s stirring exhortation about “radical collaboration” for the sake of the global Church finishing the task Jesus Christ left us, I agreed to co-author Africa to the Rest with Sam Ngugi, although I had started the book the year prior and was more than half-way, or so I thought.

 

SUPERSONIC SPEED SINCE SAO PALO

Since that time in Sao Paolo, many other African men and women from all over the continent, and in the diaspora, ranging from mission practitioners to academics, have been consulted and/or roped in. After an initial year of various research, discussions and SWOT analysis by this array of consultants, it became so overwhelmingly clear that not only was the African Centre for Mission Mobilization & Research (ACMMR) an idea whose time had come, but also that it was an urgent one for that matter. An interim board was set up by Send Africa Network, itself a new pan-African mission agency that Eben and a couple of others were in the process of founding and roped me in. The ACMMR interim board comprised Dr. Harvey Kwiyani (Malawi/UK), Prof. Philip Antwi-Agyei (Ghana), Dr. Lazarus Phiri (Zambia), Dr. Andrew Mkwaila (Malawi), Dr. Esther Mombo (Kenya), Dr. Joshua Bogunjoku (Nigeria/USA), Madam Angéle Kalouche Biao (Benin) and Rev. Ebenezer Aryee (Ghana/UK). I had the honour of chairing it.

The centre was outdoored, online, at Send Africa’s first summit, online, in 2021. This interim board, among others, determined that Ghana might be the most suitable place to physically site the ACMMR, with possible satellites across the continent. After physically scouting a number of possible places and holding various bilateral talks, the Akrofi-Christaller Centre for Theology Mission and Culture (ACI) was finally settled on as the most germane.

 

SEND AFRICA NETWORK SUMMIT 2022

At the November 2022 Send Africa Summit in Accra, Ghana, a hybrid summit, among the several dignitaries present was Dr. Rudolph Gaisie, director of the Centre for the Study of Early African Christianity (CESEAC) at ACI (the significance of him being there would soon become apparent). A fundraising event was held for the ACMMR and a permanent board commissioned comprising: Dr. Harvey Kwiyani (Malawi/UK), Rev. Dr. Solomon Aryeetey (Ghana), Mr. Alan Webster (South Africa), Dr. Lazarus Phiri (Zambia), Rev. Daniel Hyde Appiah (Ghana), Ps. Kassum Balboné (Burkina Faso), Mr. Sam Ngugi (Kenya), Rev. Ebenezer Aryee (Ghana/UK), Madam Angéle Kalouche Biao (Benin) and Dr. Yaw Perbi (Ghana/Canada). A delegation from the new board and some delegates from the Send Africa Summit paid a courtesy call on the Registrar of ACI, Mr. Ben Asiedu, at the Akropong premises. Dr. Rudolph Gaisie took the group on a tour of the facilities, while sharing some of the vital history of the institute.

Rev. Dr. Solomon Aryeetey, medical doctor and founder of Pioneers Africa, was elected as the substantive board chair, at the board’s inaugural meeting, online, in December 2022. Dr. Lazarus Phiri, immediate pst Vice Chancellor of the Evangelical University in Zambia was selected as his vice, while Mr. Alan Webster of Wycliffe South Africa serves as the secretary.

 

LESSON LOOMING LARGE

There is no end to what God can do with humans who are willing to listen to His instructions and collaborate with His people. Usually, you know a vision is of God when it is far bigger than you and you know you firstly, you’ve got to depend on him and secondly, that you need others to rally around it. Once when I was struggling with taking up the offer to be ISMC president because I preferred to focus on building ‘my own baby’ The HuD Group as the founder and Global CEO, the Holy Spirit brought to mind the instructive words of a mentor of mine, who for years had been Dr. John C. Maxwell’s Senior Vice President at his leadership organization called EQUIIP in Atlanta. He had said to me: “For a long time, the Kingdom of God has not advanced the way it should because of egos and logos.” Ouch.

Imagine that the powerful Africa to the Rest making its rounds around the world would not have happened the same way without my co-author’s unique perspective, experience and network from East Africa. Today, we have a group of scholars from five or six countries collaborating to turn the book into a resource course for tertiary students. At the start of August 2023, Operation Mobilization’s ship ministry, Logos Hope, reached out to stock the ship with 500 copies of Africa to the Rest to be distributed across the continent, from Mombasa to Seychelles, and beyond. What if my ego and logo had gotten in the way.

As I type this, plans are far advanced to organize the formal signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between ACMMR and the Centre for the Study of Early African Christianity (CESEAC) at ACI, with an inaugural lecture on the serene premises. Neither Eben or myself even have our faces on ACMMR posters or our names as chair, or even vice chair or executive director. I dare say most of the people pushing the vision today don’t even know this back story I’ve just shared here!

And that is the beauty of making the only ‘ego’ that matters be the glory of God and the only ‘logo’ that is of prime concern, the cross of Jesus Christ! The aim of the centre is knowledge-based total mobilization of the most numerically Christian continent this century for the mission of God.. 

Indeed, if it is true that one would chase a thousand and two will put ten thousand to flight, then imagine what is exponentially possible with convergence and synergy. See what unity of purpose devoid of egos and logos could result in for the sake of the greater Kingdom of God. So you see, there is no limit on God-sized visions; but for our egos and logos.

The Best Promotions are the Worst.

Here’s the worst thing about the best promotion. At one of my organizations, we recently had to let an excellent hire go. Come to think of it, we failed him. We failed him by promoting him.

You would think that all promotions are good but no. One of the worst kinds is being ‘elevated’ to become a leader just because you are an outstanding worker or producer. Working on stuff and excelling is very different from working with souls to excel. The reward for hard work is more work, weird yes, but the latter tends to be more mental work than manual —which most people find as more beneficial—also, more of working with people than working on things.

As one person shared about struggling with leadership upon her first promotion as a telco manager: “Within one month, I went from being the best programmer to the worst supervisor.” I’ve seen this happen to too many people in too many places. I grew up on the University of Ghana campus (both my grandfather and mother were professors there) and I would see time and time again fine lecturers promoted into leadership positions, from heads of department through deanship to vice-chancellorship and flail and fail. How many times have I said that a great chemist or erudite historian doesn’t necessarily make a great leader!

We do the same in the medical world, promoting top surgeons to head departments or if God doesn’t intervene, to head the hospital! When I was promoted to supervise the Military Polyclinic at the 37 Military Hospital in Accra, determining the doctors scheduling and all, in my opinion it was only because I wasn’t a bad doctor and had been around long enough. And no one gave me a minute’s training about leadership. Squat. Thank God I had been a private student of leadership for years prior.

It doesn’t start out as a bad thing; in fact, it is exhilarating at first for the recipient of the promotion. And the giver of the opportunity ordinarily also means well and feels good about it. But organizational leaders need to rethink the notion of making people supervisors, managers or leaders as a reward for diligent or even skillful individual technical work. It can backfire, seriously.

 

A STORY I CAN’T GET OVER

One of the most poignant illustrations of this phenomenon of worker/rewarded-as-leader is told by my mentor Bill George in his book ‘True North.’ It’s about the person who confessed upon her first promotion as a telco manager, “Within one month, I went from being the best programmer to the worst supervisor.” Here are some more details:

“It’s unbelievable how bad I was. I didn’t know how to delegate. When somebody had a question about their work, I’d pick it up and do it. My group was not accomplishing anything because I was on the critical path of everything. My boss saw we were imploding, so he did an amazing thing: He gave me every new project that came in. It was unreal. At 4:30 PM, my team would leave, and I’d be working day and night trying to dig through this stuff.

“Finally, I couldn’t take it any longer. I went to his office, stamped my foot like a 5-year-old, and said, “It’s not fair. I have the work of 10 people!” He sad calmly, “Look out there. You have 10 people. Put them to work.” It was such a startling revelation. I said sheepishly, “I get it.”” [1]

If this person hadn’t eventually learned to lead people, she would never have made it to becoming president and CEO of the American Red Cross on June 23, 2008. Prior to that she had also held top management positions at AT&T Corporation and Fidelity Investments. She is a member of the board of trustees of Johns Hopkins University and the board of directors of DTE Energy.

This is Gail J. McGovern we’re talking about here, even recognized by Fortune magazine in 2000 and 2001 as one of the top 50 most powerful women in corporate America. Alas, not all of such stories that begin with such ‘good promotions’ end well, and even when they do, not without significant damage to many.

 

DIAGNOSIS OF LEADERSHIP FAILURE POST PROMOTION

It takes both a different mindset and skill set to move from being an excellent worker to being a good leader, let alone a great one. Yet we come to the world of work with both a mindset and skillset that ill-prepare us for leadership success. Even prior, we are socialized largely to excel as individuals. I concur with Bill George that this unpreparedness is attributable to our upbringing:

“…so much of our early success in life depends upon individual efforts, from the grades we earn in school to our performance in individual sports to our initial work assignments. Admissions offices and employers closely examine those achievements and use them to make comparisons. …As we are promoted from individual roles to leadership, we believe we are being recognized for our ability to get others to follow us…

“To become authentic leaders, we must discard the myth that leadership means having legions of supporters following us as we ascend to the pinnacles of power. Only then can we realize that authentic leadership is serving people… How else can they unleash the power of their organization unless they motivate people to reach their full potential? … Only when leaders stop focusing on their personal needs and see themselves as serving others are they able to develop other leaders.” [2]

 

 

ROAD MAP TO LEADERSHIP SUCCESS POST PROMOTION

If Maxwell’s 5 Levels of Leadership is anything to go by, then when one is promoted from the top echelons of the worker floor (Peak Performer/Worker Level 3 in diagram above), they only end up at Level 1 of leadership: Position. The lowest level of leadership—the entry level, if you will—is position. People only follow if they believe that they have to (otherwise you might use your powers of carrot and stick). If this leader takes the hint and invests in their leadership growth, they can move to Leader Level 2—Permission—which is based on relationship. At this level, people choose to follow because they want to.

You will notice that even what Gail was trying to get done at work, putting the 10 people ‘out there’ to work, is still only mid-level in the Maxwell scheme of things: Production. Good leaders know how to motivate their people to GTD – get things done! And getting things done is what Leader Level 3 is all about. But they’re only good; not great. Leader Level 4 — People Development—can be summed up in another word: Reproduction. One’s goal at this level is to identify and develop as many leaders as one can and investing in them to help them grow. Here (Leader Level 4), you’re producing people as leaders, not producing work through people (Leader Level 3).

The most challenging and highest level of leadership, Level 5, is the Pinnacle. According to Maxwell, it requires longevity as well as intentionality in investing one’s life into the lives of other leaders and organizations for the long haul (while growing yourself as lifelong learner all the while). People follow such because of who they are and what they represent. Their leadership gains a positive reputation, betters still, one has earned respect.

Note that Level 5 leaders develop Level 5 organizations. I will add that in the leader versUs institutions debate—as to whether it is strong leaders or strong institutions we need to develop long-term—I would say that it takes Level 5 leaders to build the structures and systems that produce strong institutions. This is the realm of legacy. As a result, Level 5 leaders often transcend their position, their organization, their industry and perhaps even their nation.

And nothing accelerates leaders through these levels, from 1 to 5, like intentional coaching.

 

CONCLUSION

As you can tell already, it’s a long way from being the best worker to being a great leader. There is nothing more painful than a “highly capable individual” (as Jim Collins puts it) thinking that just because they’ve been a peak performer and ‘made it’ onto the supervision, management or leadership floor that they’ve got what it takes to run the ship. One’s productive contribution through individual effort in knowledge, skills and good work habits won’t cut it. As promoters, if we promote people and fail to plan a leadership growth path alongside that, we’ve inadvertently planned to fail them.

Congratulations on your promotion, but to ensure that dream-come-true doesn’t become a nightmare, and the reward a trap instead, you must be aware that it’s a floor and not the ceiling. Top floor workers’ triumphal entry through the golden portal of promotion only lands you as a ground floor leader. Welcome to Level 1 of Leadership: position. Just that.

 

References

[1] Bill George. True North: Becoming an Authentic Leader. Second edition; expanded and updated edition. Jossey-Bass, Hoboken, NJ, 2015, pg. 186-187.

[2] Ibid, pg. 185

The Inadvertent Lid of Political Leadership: My One Regret and Heartache.

It’s been a very busy few weeks. The last one in particular was the kind that Nelson Mandela would call “‘impossible’ until it’s done.” The very morn of the dawn I arrived back in Accra from Kenya, the first day of the work week, I had to be speaking at about 10am at an African Young Professionals Conference. That same week my team at PELÉ and the Ghanaian contingent of the African-wide BCA Leadership hosted the power-packed, two-day Made in Africa Leadership Conference (MLC) from June 13 to 15. Then there was a Youth Rally in the vicinity of the University of Professional Studies (June 15 evening) where l was  billed to speak as well. And then to crown that week, The HuD Group, which I founded with eight of my friends in 2003, held a press launch of our twentieth anniversary and simultaneous launch of three legacy projects.

In all of this business and busyness, one thing that has come through very clearly is that leadership is absolutely important–that everything does rises and falls on leadership. I tried to make that point in my opening remarks to the distinguished ladies and gentlemen convened at the Marriot for the aforementioned MLC 2023. Even this morning, as I was training the executive team of one of our PELÉ clients, a tech start-up, Maxwell’s Law of the Lid came to the fore: leadership is the lid on their personal level of  effectiveness as well as the organization’s impact that it would ever make.

Leadership is so important that every professional must have it, everyone in every sector of the economy must possess it, and everyone at every level of society must have it but especially leadership is too important to leave it to politicians alone. “Leadership is cause,” as one other leadership expert puts it, “everything else is effect.”

As we celebrate 20 years of The HuD Group, we can testify that God has done amazing things in, on, with and through The HuD Group. We started in Ghana, moved to Cote D’Ivoire, then to Nigeria and Canada and now have a presence in 24-25 countries on all continents, having incredible impact on people in every sphere. In fact, at the anniversary launch last week Friday, several VIPs like celebrated, young, award-winning journalist Manasseh Azure Awuni, shared how The HuD Group had impacted them. But I shared with the audience my one regret: that in all this 20 years of The HuD Group we did not give enough attention to the political space in particular. Of course, it is not that we did nothing at all but knowing what l know now and seeing how successes in all these other areas of life have literally been eroded by what has happened in the political space, especially in Ghana, that really breaks my heart.

 

 

THE SKY ISN’T THE LIMIT; POLITICIANS ARE

This has been a season of lots of graduations. I’ve seen flashy photos from Harvard to Fuller, and been physically present at inspiring commencements like Ashesi’s about three weeks ago. First, I’ve been excited about all these amazing graduates bustling with energy and vision and drive, some having done some earthshaking capstone projects and all. Yet all these amazing people formally graduated by our best academic establishments and semi-formally by The HuD Group in the last 20 years—and yes, some of us have been though all kinds of fellowships from Aspen and Eisenhower to Tutu—are restricted by what happens in the political space because everything rises and falls on that leadership. Political leadership is the lid over all our collective effectiveness and greatness.

If anyone told these graduands that the sky is the limit, that isn’t wholly true; our political leaders are. No I’m not a whiner; I am precisely the opposite of that, which is why I’m a serial entrepreneur. So I believe in creative ways around ‘the system’ but as the august chairperson of the HuD anniversary launch, Madam Yawa Hanson-Quao, had earlier said at the MLC, “We cannot entrepreneur our way out of bad governance.” Political leadership is the lid over all our other attempts at leadership.

Political leadership is the lid over all of our collective effectiveness and greatness in all of our fields of work and spheres of influence. We’ve got to get up and take the political space seriously and not let anyone who is not a selfless, authentic, transformational leader make their way there! Because then, it doesn’t matter how the collective brilliance of all of us is, there would be a lid over the rest of us. A good illustration is the proverbial army of sheep led by a lion versus or an army of lions led by a sheep.

At the end of the day, every sector, and every level of our society needs at least good leaders, even better, great leaders! Otherwise like John Gardener aptly puts it, “The society which scorns excellence in plumbing as a humble activity and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy [or politics for that matter] because it is an exalted activity will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy: neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water.”

Sans Leadership–So Much to Lose, Too Much to Lose.

The following was shared as a TED-like talk to open the Made in Africa Leadership Conference by BCA Leadership on June 14 at the Marriot Hotel, Accra, Ghana.

 

My uncle died. My mom’s youngest brother. He came over to Ghana from the United States, where he had lived for decades, and fell ill. He died in the very hospital I worked in at the time. In fact, he died on my ward. But I can swear it wasn’t his disease that killed him. It was leadership, or rather the lack thereof. Leadership is too important for doctors not to have it.

Some of the most important things in life are not taught in school, like leadership. When some of my friends from university got into government I did exhort them: “Nobody taught us Jack about leadership. LEARN LEADERSHIP! CONTRACT COACHES! Leadership is not just caught; it is taught.” Did they listen? Ha!

Ironically, communal, national, continental or even global leadership, is a deeply person-al thing. It takes deeply transformed leaders to deeply transform society. Authentic leadership begins with aligning what goes on in a leader’s head and heart with True North. Leadership principles or True North are no respector of persons—red or yellow, black or white.

Two days from now, we will be officially launching the 20th anniversary celebration of The HuD Group, a holistic leadership organization started by nine young Africans in Accra. From one country in West Africa, it now has presence in 24 countries, on all six continents. Out of Africa to the Rest. From a former Rwandan refugee now in executive leadership in Uganda to a former child soldier in Sierra Leone now a high-ranking bank official in his homeland, to a Chinese-Canadian who we trained via Skype when she was an international medical student in Australia, a lot of transformation and impact has been achieved but in Ghana in particular I feel much of our gains have been eroded by not giving adequate attention to political leadership.

So today is the first of two important occasions this week where I will be drumming home this point with all my heart, liver, spleen and intestines: “Leadership is too important to leave it to politicians alone.” AND with 90% of African businesses being SMEs, creating 60-80% of our jobs and accounting for 40% of our GDP, what we do here at MLC this week for African leaders and African leadership is wildly important.

When two 14-year old stowaways from Guinea, Yaguine and Foday, froze to death in the landing gear of an Airbus 330 from Conakry to Brussels, they had on them a hand-written letter labelled: IN CASE WE DIE… to the Messrs. members and officials of Europe.

They said, among other things, “We have the honor and pleasure and great confidence in you to write this letter … we appeal to your solidarity and kindness for help in Africa. …we, African children and youth, ask you to create a great, efficient organization for Africa to allow us to progress. …we want to study and we ask you to help us in Africa to study to be like you.”

You should find and read the whole letter here—it will thaw and tear your heart. And that was 24 years ago. Has anything changed?

It’s time for Leadership Made in Africa that makes Africa work for Africans. BEFORE WE DIE. Yes we can, partnering and collaborating to reimagine and reform the Africa that we want! Twende! Let’s go! Let’s do this!

To Compete or To Complete? That is the Question.

Dr. G. Ayorkor Korsah (née Mills-Tettey) and I shared many hearty laughs at the VIP lounge after Ashesi University’s impressively inspiring commencement ceremony last Saturday, June 3, 2023. She is a Senior Lecturer in Computer Science and Robotics, and as department head, Computer Science & Information Systems, she was in her element dolling out degrees to deserving graduates. But we have a 28-year history of rivalry.

This wasn’t our first meeting. Nearly three decades ago, in 1995, we were impassioned opponents. Each of us was part of a trio representing our high schools in the semi-final of the Brillant Science and Maths Quiz on national television. Brillant was what it was called, yes, no typo there. That was the name of the blue bar soap by Unilever that was the title sponsor OF the competition. Much has changed since then. National Science and Maths Quiz, it’s now called. Very appropriate. Prime Time was in its prime, producing this feast of brilliance. They seem to have kept their shine, now in the hands of the next generation of Mensah-Bonsus.

 

THE LADIES WERE LOVED

Our battle was held and filmed at the Great Hall of the University of Ghana, Legon. Technically, this should’ve been a ‘home match’ for me, in my own territory, since the venue was barely a mile from my home, No. 14 Legon Hill. But no. Everyone was rooting for the über smart all-ladies team from Wesley Girls. Can you blame them? Even now they would be a delight; how much more in those medieval ages of STEM in Africa. Come to think of it, the now-ubiquitous ‘STEM’ term for Science, Tech, Engineering and Math had not even been cooked yet. The STEM acronym was only introduced in 2001 by scientific administrators at the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF). Girls in Science were hallowed in the 1990s.  Even I admired them, but my mission was to win for my school. No distractions.

My Achimota School team was made up of three boys, the three musketeers, although we are the first co-ed public school in the country as far back as 1927 and had science girls who rocked. Needless to say, the competition against the Cape Coast chics was fierce. We had both earned our way to the penultimate in the southern zone.

We inflicted what is arguably the most painful defeat Geyhey has ever suffered at the science and maths quiz. It was veeery close. Even the camera crew were downcast when the celebrity girls lost, visibly disappointed. We made enemies that day. Some couldn’t even hide it.

 

SOME OTHER LADIES, SOME OTHER TIME

But as it turned out: it’s not the whole word that hated us. Some girls loved us. I was the recipient of umpteen letters of adulation from young ladies all over the country. They happily introduced themselves, sometimes with atrocious photo inserts, and poured their admiration on me—about my intellectual prowess among other things which will distract from the point of this article. Now I’m not sure all of it was appropriate for seventeen.

Even the Weygeygey girls became friends later when things cooled down. After all, “if you can’t beat them; join them,” as they say. That’s how I ended up with the various names in that year group, some of whom became colleagues at the University of Ghana Medical School, as friends. Zanetor Rawlings, first daughter of the then Flight Lieutenant-retired president of Ghana, even visited me in Achimota School at some point. Like me, she would later pursue Medicine too; but in Ireland. I once warned her at a party in Nana Ama Barnes’ home on Legon Campus that if she dared ended up schooling outside Ghana after her revolutionary dad had messed up (yes, teenagers are fearless!) our educational system so, I would be really mad. I guess I’m still mad. A little. She has since returned and been admiringly serving as a Member of Parliament for the Korle Klottey constituency of Accra. In any case, seeing affliction metted out to a certain young man who hang around her at the time, involuntary hair-shaving at the Osu Castle and all, it might have been providence that I stayed at arm’s length.

 

NOTHING BUT ADMIRATION AND RESPECT

But I digress. Back to the main lady Gertrude, as we called Ayorkor then. She was and is brilliantly brilliant. We only beat her team by strategy and a stroke of luck. Call it grace, if you like. Those girls were on fire! Ayorkor, after 1995, went on ahead to pack up four degrees including two Bachelor’s, a Master’s and a PhD. Dr. Korsah grew up in Ghana and Nigeria, and as a child, she wanted to be an astronaut and an engineer. Ayorkor didn’t join the majority of us that continued to Ghanaian tertiary institutions but went to Ivy League Dartmouth to major in engineering. She attended Carnegie Mellon University for her doctoral work in computer science, obtaining a PhD in 2011.

Ayorkor Korsah is all-round passionate about the artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, algorithms, and programming courses she teaches on the Ashesi Hill but so is she about expanding robotics education in Africa for every Kofi and Amma. That’s why she co-founded the African Robotics Network (AFRON) over a decade ago with a robotics professor at the University of California, Berkeley, Ken Goldberg.

Anyele my wife and I really found a common sweet spot with Ayorkor last Saturday when we coincidentally discovered our common passion for literacy. Being someone who has shared with the BBC how humans and machines can collaborate and combine their strengths, Ayorkor once, over a dozen years ago, experimented with an automated reading tutor in the quest to improving child literacy in Africa. She has a paper on it in the Information Technologies & International Development journal, vol. 6 no. 2, 2010. We are keen to collaborate with her and her bright Ashesi students at our EdTech company, Perbi Cubs, for bigger, brighter and better outcomes for Africa’s precious cubs.

 

NOT A BOUT

Ayorkor beat me to full-time lectureship and will most likely beat me again to professorship (she so deserves it). But as she, Anyele and I continued our hearty conversation, including recruiting some of her students to practice what she teaches at our Edtech, we got to know she has two little ones of her own, younger than our last two. And we have seven. We beat her to that, fair and square. She even just married, in light of our sixteenth year, and transitioned from Mills-Tettey to Korsah.

Enough of these beatings! Really we’re all grown now and know, for sure, that life isn’t a race against each other. Nor is it about a bout. Rather than compete like we did in our teens, we now learn to complete one another in our adult years for the greater good—the Good Society. In lockstep, we will keep producing holistic emerging leaders, formally like Dr. Ayorkor Korsah does with degrees at Ashesi and informally and semi-formally like I do at The HuD Group. Ashesi turned 20 last year and we turn the same this year. Patrick Awuah, our mutual founding friend of Ashesi will be keynoting at The HuD Group’s presser on June 16, 2023. I was telling him that maybe I should’ve started a Uni too instead of going the CSO (Civil Society Organization) route. But nay, to each one their own. And we compliment, collaborate and complete each other as we all strive hard and long towards the Africa we want.

And as if by divine design, one of the Presec folks who beat our Achimota team in the finals of the Brilliant Science and Math Quiz 1995 southern zone competition ended up as my Biological Sciences course mate and even my room mate at Legon Hall, University of Ghana. We both competed for the few slots at med school available to our Leviathan-sized cohort and made it–from the same room!

There’s a time to compete and a time to collaborate. For me, to complete and not compete today as professional pals and fellow family framers of the same generation is a no-brainer. Here’s to answering life’s real tough questions and quizzes together. Congratulations, Dr. Ayorkor Korsah, for continually raising the bar.

 

Post script

And oh, Anyele and Ayikai, Ayorkor’s engineering whiz kid of a younger sister, have been tight friends for a quarter-of-a-century, going way back to their Wesley Girls days.

Introducing PELÉ (Perbi Executive Leadership Education).

Imagine a flourishing global ecosystem of authentic leaders characterized by healthy growth, holistic success and lasting significance. That’s the big dream and eternal hope fuelling our daily tasks at the Executive Education firm that bears my name, YAW PERBI. A couple of years ago, after eight years as President & CEO of a Canadian non-profit in the international education space and having garnered several years of executive leadership experience in the Ghanaian military and medical fraternity, global media, the United Nations in Cote d’Ivoire etc. I decided it was time to serve all of that to leaders of leaders: the C-suite. So I came out of sabbatical and stepped down as President of ISMCanada to do this.

Since according to my mentor of a quarter of a century, John C. Maxwell, by whom I’m officially a certified coach, speaker and trainer,  that “one is too small a number to achieve greatness,” I have been steadily growing a global team of competent, caring, confident and character-based co-leaders on/from every continent in the world beyond myself to make our faith, sight. That journey has culminated in the birth of PELÉ.

 

A Play on Words

In keeping our focus on growing and coaching executive leadership to succeed, ever broadening the authentic relationships and resources we bring to bear on our task, we decided to move away from YAW PERBI specifically and to build Perbi Executive Leadership Education, PELÉ for short. PELÉ is not exactly just a happy coincidence, for as a once-upon-a-time football fanatic and soccer player for my elementary school, I recently engaged in my fair share of arguments about who the greatest soccer player of all time is between the shouts in favour of Lionel Messi after lifting the Qatar World Cup trophy on December 18, 2022 and the incessant calls to hallow the legendary Edson Arantes do Nascimento, better known by his nickname Pelé, who died eleven days later on December 29. As a double childhood hero—both of my dad and myself—I had been pondering a way to honour a Black man who gave everyone so much delight and so many people of his skin hue so much pride.

As I’ve stated before, “I am eager to particularly provide C-level executives of African descent with the paradigms, processes and tools necessary to maximize their potential, to be world class, take the world stage and make their dent in the universe.”

 

A Word In Play

Then came April 2023 when the Pelé Foundation and Sportv launched the “Pelé in the dictionary” campaign to pay tribute and recognise his legacy in other fields beyond sport. Of course his name has long been a synonymous with success and excellence, both of which are values of our Executive Education company, but now the great Brazilian forward and only human to have lifted three World Cup trophies officially had his name in the Portuguese dictionary. The adjective “Pelé” has been added to the Portuguese edition of the Michaelis dictionary to describe “someone out of the ordinary.”

Pelé, the nickname of the late football legend, has officially become tantamount to “extraordinary, exceptional, incomparable, unique.” Pelé is an adjective for something or someone that is out of the ordinary, one who by virtue of their quality, value or superiority cannot be equalled to anything or anyone, just like Pelé. For example, he is the Pelé of basketball, she is the Pelé of paediatrics.

 

 

What’s in a Name?

According to Emily Olson of NPR, “It was in the small, impoverished town of Bauru where he first got his nickname playing in youth leagues.” Apparently, even Pelé himself wasn’t sure where it came from, he wrote in a 2006 piece for The Guardian, but it may have been a play on Bilé, the nickname of a goalkeeper for the team Pelé’s father played on. “I can remember the name really bugged me at first. I was really proud that I was named after Thomas Edison and wanted to be called Edson,” he said. “I thought Pelé sounded horrible. It was a rubbish name. Edson sounded so much more serious and important.”

PELÉ by YAW PERBI is an Executive Education firm that offers authentic and customized relationships and resources to C-Level executives to grow personally, succeed professionally and become significant societally. To this end, the company provides Pelé services in leadership development, management training, executive coaching and publishing. Our Pelé coaching, authoring, speaking, and training are centred on LIFE—Leadership, Integrity, Family, Entrepreneurship.

 

Conclusion

We are PELÉ–extraordinary, exceptional, incomparable, unique–but more importantly, we form PELÉs, who are authentic, out of the ordinary executive leaders in every sector of life and all society’s centres of influence. As a forward-looking, authentic leader, if you want to dextrously dribble through LIFE and exceptionally hit goals like the legendary Pelé, you know where to look for the kind of coaching and training it will take: Perbi Executive Leadership Education (PELÉ). Like begets like.

Confluence for Influence: Kanéval by Perbi Cubs Leverages UNESCO’s Accra World Book Capital 2023.

Exciting news! Perbi Cubs Library Services is teaming up with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the Ghana Book Development Council, among others, to celebrate Accra World Book Capital (AWBC ’23) as official partners. Accra, the capital city of Ghana, in West Africa, is the 23rd city in the world, and only the fourth in Africa, to have the honour of this title which UNESCO initiated in 2001 to promote literacy globally. This is akin to a literacy World Cup title, only it is bestowed annually.

The World Book Capital is an initiative of UNESCO which recognizes cities for promoting books and fostering reading for a year, starting on April 23, World Book and Copyright Day. UNESCO adopted the 31 C/Resolution 29, in 2001, establishing the World Book Capital (WBC) programme. Cities designated as UNESCO World Book Capital pledge to carry out activities with the aim of encouraging a culture of reading and diffusing the values of literacy, lifelong learning, copyright, and freedom of expression in all ages and population groups, both within and beyond national borders. The first city to be awarded was Spain in 2001 and Accra’s turn is sandwiched between Guadalajara, Mexico (2022) and Strasbourg, France (2024).

The UNESCO World Book Capital Advisory Committee, which evaluates bids to win the title, comprises representatives of the International Publishers Association (IPA), the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA), the International Authors Forum (IAF) and UNESCO. Past capitals include Madrid (2001), Alexandria (2002), New Delhi (2003), Anvers (2004), Montreal (2005), Turin (2006), Bogota (2007), Amsterdam (2008), Beirut (2009), Ljubljana (2010), Buenos Aires (2011), Erevan (2012), Bangkok (2013), Port Harcourt (2014), Incheon (2015), Wroclaw (2016), Conakry (2017), Athens (2018), Sharjah, (2019), Kuala Lumpur (2020) and Tbilisi (2021).

 

 

THE GHANA JOURNEY

Accra’s first attempt to win the 2019 World Book Capital title, after the idea was mooted in 2016 and working towards that, failed. Accra relaunched the bid in April 2021 and won it. The executive board of UNESCO, at its 215th session in Paris, France, on September 22, 2021, named Accra the World Book Capital 2023, following evaluation by the World Book Capital Advisory Committee. This was no mean achievement for the ten-member bidding team representing the Accra Metropolitan Assembly, Ghana Commission for UNESCO, Ghana Library Association, Ghana Publishers Association, Complementary Education Agency (formerly Non-Formal Education Division), Ghana Association of Writers, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration and chaired by Mrs Ernesticia Lartey Asuinura, the Executive Director of the Ghana Book Development Council (GBDC). Several internal staff of GBDC were behind this successful bid and must be applauded.

According to UNESCO, “the city of Accra was selected for its strong focus on young people and their potential to contribute to the culture and wealth of Ghana. Accra’s proposed programme seeks to use the power of books to engage these young people, as an effective way of skilling up the next generation.” Earlier this year, on April 11, the Minister of Education of Ghana, Dr. Yaw Adutwum, held a press launch of AWBC’23 at which Perbi Cubs was represented by the Founder and CEO, Mrs. Anyele Perbi. He explained that Accra was selected ahead of other cities because the Education Ministry’s programmatic focus was on young people and their ability to contribute to the culture and wealth of Ghana through the power of reading. “Research shows that reading improves the learning outcomes of students in schools,’ said the Minister. “That’s why in certain schools around the world, they’ve implemented and employed the ‘Drop Everything And Read’ – ‘DEAR’.  So if it’s 15 minutes, 20 minutes a day, children are made to stop everything and read,” he illustrated.

 

 

Dr. Yaw Perbi, Global CEO of The HuD Group and Co-Founder of Perbi Cubs, and Mrs. Anyele Perbi , Founder and CEO of Perbi Cubs, were invited and did attend the grand opening of AWBC ’23 by the President of the Republic of Ghana, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, and the Director-General of UNESCO, Madam Audrey Azoulay Ayoub, at the Accra International Conference Centre. The theme for the occasion was ‘Reading to connect minds for Social Transformation’. It was encouraging interacting with school children as well as top academics at the Perbi Cubs booth, including members of the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences. Visiting the exhibition booths of other players in the literacy space was also invigorating but nothing beat the joy of seeing the attending school children flock to the Perbi Cubs stand to sample for a few minutes the thousands of books on their online platform.

 

 

Under the theme ‘Reading to connect minds for social transformation’ the programmes planned for the title year will focus on particularly the youth and vulnerable groups in Accra (and Ghana at large) such as children, underemployed women, head-porters (kayayei) and persons living with disability, to equip them with literacy and employable skills, while promoting the rich Ghanaian cultural heritage and the book industry in Ghana.

 

THE PERBI JOURNEY

Both Yaw and Anyele Perbi (née Ampa-Sowa) come from homes full of books. In fact, they got to know each other as children of professors at the University of Ghana campus. Anyele’s dad was an Economics lecturer and Yaw’s mum, a history lecturer. In their growing up years Yaw’s own dad, being a long-time member of the board of Challenge Bookshop, would receive loads of books every year, feeding their home library fat.

Tracing the history of books even further, Yaw’s maternal grandfather was not only an author and professor of African Studies and Ethnomusicology at the same university, but also  together with writer and educator Dr. Efua Sutherland organized the first international book fair in Ghana in the early 1970s and proceeded to come together to found Afram Publications a couple of years later, incorporating it in February 1973. Emeritus Professor J.H. Kwabena Nketia was his name.

The Perbi household buzzed with books and moments like when the floating bookshops, the MV Doulos or Logos ships, would berth at the Tema Harbour were fun galore. Meanwhile, Yaw did not like reading as much as Anyele in their early years on the Legon campus. Anyele LOVED reading to the point that the rate of buying books for her and her two brothers was threatening to bankrupt her parents. When she was missing from the house you could be sure she was immersed in a book somewhere!

 

 

Two jerking statements changed Yaw’s attitude towards books. The first was, “If you want to hide something from a Black people, put it in the book.” You may read the full story here. Fascinatingly, by the age of twenty-three, Yaw would write and publish his first book, What Every Fresher Should Know about University, and as an internationally-recognized author of some twenty books and several book chapters, journal articles etc. now, as they say, the rest is history. Today, one of his punchy books called Read! is subtitled: “You are ‘illiterate’ if you can read but don’t.” Dr. Perbi’s 2015 Thinking Outside the Window was even an Amazon bestseller in its category. His latest book, co-authored with a Kenyan and published in March 2023, is entitled Africa to the Rest. In it, Yaw stresses the need for Africans not only to read but also to write. “Until the lion learns to write,” he reminds us, quoting an old African wise saying,  “every tale of the hunt will glorify the hunter.”

When Yaw founded The HuD Group in 2003, one of its first divisions was a library called The Mine (it still runs at the Staff Village of the University of Ghana). So for at least two decades now, Dr. Perbi has been a fierce reading campaigner. And now in tandem with the erudite Anyele, he likes to say “my wife and I have stepped up by stepping down.” What he means by that is, they’ve enhanced their reading campaign (stepped up) but decided to go further down to the age where humans are most pliable: childhood (stepping down). And they began with their our own seven children in the French city of Montreal, Canada which happens to have been the UNESCO World Book Capital in 2005, four years before they would dwell there as a family for the next dozen years. Their own children’s love for reading, the generous 40 books per person supply of the Pierrefonds municipal library across the street from their West Island home and an imminent eight-month visit to Ghana that threatened to stifle this Perbi reading culture combined to birth the Perbi Cubs Library Services. You may find the story and philosophy behind Perbi Cubs here.

 

 

AND NOW, KANÉVAL

According to Perbi Cubs CEO, “We are excited to inform you that Perbi Cubs, in partnership with UNESCO Accra World Book Capital 2023, will be organizing a fantastic year-long program. Watch out for Kanéval as it moves round throughout the year, to your school or community. Stay tuned on the various Perbi Cubs social media handles like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram for more updates.” Kanéval by Perbi Cubs, a season of fun, inspiration, and BOOKS, is launching in Accra on May 11, 2023.

As long as reading remains a chore, we’ll have a problem promoting it. But who doesn’t love a good festival, a carnival? What if we could think outside the box and bring together the idea of a traveling amusement show with merrymaking sideshows, rides, etc. with reading? What if face-painting or getting on a swing was a reward for reading a book? These are some of the disruptive ideas that incubated and eventually hatched Kanéval. The idea of Perbi Cubs in general and KANÉVAL in particular, is to bring FUN to reading while strongly brandishing the connection between reading and success in life.

In the spirit of innovation and creativity, Perbi Cubs values, the coined word Kanéval was inspired by the word for read in Ga, the language of the Accra people, Kané. So combining ‘Kané’ with the English word ‘carnival,’ here we are! There will be lots of fun, reading and other educational activities. Perbi Cubs is grateful to several Ghanaian influencers like Nana Aba Anamoah (media personality and General Manager of GHOne TV and Starr FM), Bernard Avle (Citi Breakfast Show host and General Manager of Citi FM), Kafui Dei (author, speaker and GTV Breakfast host), Portia Gabor (TV3 hostess and Ghana Journalist Association’s reigning Journalist of the Year), Gwen Addo (entrepreneur, author and CEO, The Hair Senta), Giovani Caleb (media personality, radio and TV), Gifty Anti (author, media personality, celebrated journalist) and others who are synergizing with them to take the culture of reading to the next level to transform the fortunes of Ghana and Africa.

Perbi Cubs’ Kanéval is scheduled to take off on 11th May, 2023 at Alpha Beta Education Centres and then to all their partner schools and other communities, particularly deprived ones badly needing a literacy intervention. Kanéval is not just for our Cubs but all our stakeholders including you. There are many activities you can join in with exciting prizes. Kanéval awaits you for a Kanévalistic experience. Kanéval – Reading is fun!!! The amazing part is that in collaboration with various partners, Perbi Cubs is offering huge discounts on their subscriptions so that every Cub in their partner schools can read this year!

 

 

WE HAVE A PROBLEM

Kanéval is fun about something serious. And Ghana in particular has a problem that isn’t funny. As a society we do not value reading enough. If research has proven that the love for reading is a stronger indicator of a child’s success in school and prosperity in life than even their parents’ socioeconomic status or level of education, then we should be worried that only 6% of Ghanaian children at classes two and three can read and understand what they read (UNESCO 2021). Meanwhile the World Book Capital Network (WBCN) acknowledges and reminds us of the power of books and reading as cornerstones to more inclusive, peaceful and sustainable societies. Thus as they rightly put it at Perbi Cubs, “Success is just a book away,” be it personal or national.

Let this be the year we all got dead serious about raising the tide (the general level of literacy) that lifts all the other boats, all sectors and subjects, including STEM. O that the confluence for influence between Kanéval by Perbi Cubs, influencers like those cited above and all other players in the UNESCO’s Accra World Book Capital 2023 space will do the trick. Let’s get on with this serious business, having fun along the way. Kanéval it is!

The Way Up is Down.

At Easter, I threw a challenge to the leaders in my network: lay down yourself for someone else’s uplifting. This challenge was triggered by inspiration I received when I had just returned from a college graduation the week before Holy Week. Although it had been a season of graduation ceremonies in Ghana across many tertiary institutions, this was a special one, a very special one.

About six years ago, our family travelled to Ghana from Canada on furlough. We had planned to stay the entire period at my parents-in-love’s residence in Accra. Being a reasonably big-sized big family (the children weren’t even seven yet!) we obviously needed some domestic assistance. We were glad to welcome a promising young lady, Benedicta, as our new house help after a couple of failed trials.

As we lived with her and observed her initiative, diligence, smartness, humility, kindness and care we took an extra interest in what her ultimate dream was. She had the potential to be like any one of us high income, high impact professionals and not necessarily having to be confined to a vocation of domestic assistance her entire life. We found out about her high school final grades and thought they could be improved. And so we (my wife and I, parents-in-love and other family members) decided to invest in her, everything from extra classes through re-sit examinations. Even when she was finally given a shot at college my mother-in-law would get her books and do mock interviews with her to prepare for the entrance interviews. Long story short, she made it into nursing college.Now, that is the graduation we went for that day.

Today, Benedicta is a nurse. She graduated from the Nurses & Midwives Training College in Teshie, Accra, Ghana. From house help to nurse; and that is what brought me to the Easter challenge because at Easter, we see the ultimate leader Himself laying down His life for the people He saw value in. At the risk of sounding holier-than-though, the previous family she left to serve ours was just about to invest in her to be a fried pork seller by the street.

 

JOHANNINE CHALLENGE

Everybody knows John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.” But what a lot of people who are not schooled in Trinitarian theology don’t realize is that this scripture is basically saying that God so loved the world—God so saw value in you and me—that he gave Himself for us, because God is Father-Son-Spirit. The ultimate leader laid down Himself for our uplifting.

 

PAULINE CHALLENGE

This giving of Himself or laying down His life for us is spoken of by St. Paul’s to the Church in Philippi in such humble and humbling terms. He begins in Philippians 2:5 by exhorting that “your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus.” Let’s take Eugene Peterson’s contemporary version:

^5-8 Think of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thought of himself. He had equal status with God but didn’t think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human! Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn’t claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death—and the worst kind of death at that—a crucifixion.” [1]

Wow! God becoming a man was not just humbling, it was humiliating. Yet even when formed and found in appearance of a human, he could’ve been a very proud man but no! He was down-to-earth and mingled with tax collectors and ‘sinners’. In fact, it was on the night he was betrayed–during Holy Week–that He washed his own disciples’ dirty and stinky feet and wiped them with a towel around his waist.

The way up is down, for because of this humble attitude and action,  “God lifted him high and honored him far beyond anyone or anything, ever, so that all created beings in heaven and on earth—even those long ago dead and buried—will bow in worship before this Jesus Christ, and call out in praise that he is the Master of all, to the glorious honor of God the Father.” [2]  Even those who are not voluntarily honoring Jesus now will bow one day, compelled. All shall bow to the one who first bowed the lowest and is now raised the highest.

 

YOUR CHALLENGE

As a leader, I want to challenge you to choose one person, choose one thing to do this month (we’re still in the month of Easter) that involves laying down your preference, time, or money, sacrificing something, dying a little so that someone can live, graduate, have a better life etc. I challenge you to do that because that is the essence of ultimate leadership. Leadership is not about us, it is about those who take inspiration, follow, and learn from us who we get to empower and guide;  those around us.

It’s sad to see so many places in the world, especially in Africa, where government official think it is all about them. Unfortunately, even in the church there are a myriad instances where pastors are doing extremely well socioeconomically and there are congregants who are not faring well, at all. Sometimes these leaders are literally fleecing the people, milking them dry till they bleed. That’s not leadership at all, and certainly not servant leadership. Leadership is laying down our lives, laying down our gifts so that others will be blessed. It is going down to pick the downtrodden and lifting them up.

Cecelia Chan poignantly put it this way: “Instead of laying a red carpet for yourself to walk on, lay a bridge and let the young people walk over to you.” This is my challenge to you, at Easter and beyond: lay down yourself for someone else’s uplifting. God bless and honour you too as you learn to lead like Jesus.

 

References

[1] Philippians 2:5-8, The Message

[2] Philippians 2:9-11, The Message