Introduction On reflection, the last five years have been an extended period of transition. I say extended because the transition evolved and was birthed through the creation of Me Firi Ghana, a clothing brand founded because of my own personal identity crisis; a crisis mirrored by countless young Ghanaians around the world at the time. Me Firi Ghana clothing connected thousands of young Ghanaians globally, spurring a movement that united young people who shared a curious love for Ghana. A number of projects and initiatives were born through the Me Firi Ghana clothing brand, the most relevant being the What About Me (WAM) Campaign. The WAM Campaign was an annual volunteering project that took place in Ghana during the Christmas holiday period. The programme enabled resident Ghanaians and Ghanaians living abroad to connect and volunteer their time & skills to support marginalised children through our education programmes in Accra & Tamale. Between 2010-2014, we managed to galvanise 78 volunteers from 7 countries who contributed in excess of 1,100 hours of volunteering in Ghana. Me Firi Ghana was uniting second generation Ghanaians, but in hindsight, we can now see that it was a trojan horse laying the grounds for our current organisation, Future of Ghana. I say this because the WAM Campaign project was the first tangible development project we developed that created a physical connection and pathway for Ghanaians living abroad with resident Ghanaian youth. Through a grant we obtained from Africa UK, we analysed evaluation forms completed by volunteer participants between 2010-2014, hosted our first community forum and drafted a policy brief outlining best practices for engaging Ghanaian Diaspora youth with Ghana's development in 2014... unknowingly the scene had been set for the next 5 years! The learnings generated from this work led to the framing of our next half decade, which had the objective of understanding the needs of and coordinating activities for second-generation Ghanaians to deepen our learning and understanding of them. The hypothesis in 2014 was that second-generation Africans - especially those living abroad - will be mass influencers shaping economies in the next ten years. Of late, the hypothesis has become more prevalent as we’ve seen how a lack of engagement has pushed youth to influence political systems and demand change through organised demonstrations and created movements that have been amplified by social media. However, at the time, our hypothesis was framed through findings from our past activities and as a direct response to the feedback generated through the Me Firi Ghana clothing, blog and community events. It was also informed from reading reports and being invited as a keynote speaker and panellist for policy influencing events where I often saw how underrepresented and marginalised young people’s voices were during policy discussions around migration and development. During this period, policy influencing events tended to centre on remittance and its contribution to “developing countries”. But my thinking was, what about second-generation youth? They are better educated, in better jobs (in some respects) and have more surplus income than their parents – the main generation remitting – but have less of a connection with their country of origin. So, if stronger connections could be forged with their country of origin, then second-generation youth could become a titan force that can help to positively shape their country of origin and the African continent at large!
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Future of Ghana Five Year Report: 2015-2020
