The other day I was on skype with Fred. Fred is perhaps one of the most inspiring people I have ever met. Now, over six years later, I can still remember him coming to speak to the Trent-in-Ghana class at the University of Ghana about the NGO he worked for, RESPECT International, and how they were organizing to empower youth to be leaders on the Buduburam refugee settlement outside of Accra. A few days after his presentation I looked up the address of the office of his NGO, went to the tro-tro stand, asked around to find the right tro-tro to get there, and began a trip to a side of Accra I had never been to. At the office I found Fred, who in the warm and welcoming way that Ghanaians do, invited me in. It was there, in that small room on the side of a red-dirt road in one of the quieter neighbourhoods in Accra, that I began to work with Fred to write a report on the state of refugee protection in Ghana. As I began this work I learned more about him (at the time he was finishing his Master’s at Legon, as well as running RESPECT International and organizing a regional youth conference with the assistance of the UN), and about the kind of energy and creativity that is required to do development work. Together we spent nights staying in the welcoming homes of refugees on Buduburam, jumped on tro-tros to travel to every corner of the city and beyond, and struggled to find and interview civil servants who worked in the area of refugee protection. We often worked throughout the day and into the night. We bought cheap street-food on the run and sat outside internet cafes with laptops to try to connect to unprotected wireless signals. With few resources we did everything in the most creative and innovative way we could think of.
Through our work I made connections with people at the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and was soon offered an internship at the Regional Support hub in Accra. After consulting Fred and committing to finish the work that we had begun together, I took the internship and was granted yet another opportunity to see a side of refugee protection that I would not have seen with RESPECT. The internship also gave me a good excuse to extend my stay in Ghana!
I continue to be passionate about learning. I am now completing my PhD in Socio-Legal Studies at York University. During my Master’s I completed research at the Legal Resources Centre in South Africa and wrote a paper on human rights and legal knowledge as it relates to the Khomani San land claim in South Africa. I have also worked for a local NGO in Toronto doing community organizing in low-income communities around Toronto to advocate for social justice. All of what I am doing now can be tied back to what I learned in Ghana – to be creative, work hard, to always be critical, to ask questions, and to never take anything for granted. Ghana made me a better student. Not in the sense that it taught me to get higher grades, but in the sense that it taught me not to make assumptions or to be happy with general explanations.
Fred is also doing well and pursuing his passions. He and his wife now have two children. The last time I saw him in person was a few years ago in the Netherlands, where he was completing a second Master’s degree and working for an international NGO. We still reminisce about the short time we worked together in Ghana. It is these memories, these shared experiences, which keep me connected to a country that welcomed me during the most influential year of my education.