How And Where To Invest Your Talent

By Jacob Opoku

What inspired you to write this book?

Looking at how some great talents are wasted because of simply having the knowledge that we have the talent in the first place. I believe that coming to a realization and knowledge is just as important as applying the knowledge acquired

Summarize your book in one to three sentences as if you were speaking to someone unfamiliar with your book and its topic.

This book demonstrates to you how to become aware of your talent. The best possible ways to invest in your talents and skills. The book cheers you on to go for your goals in life and where to invest in those talents.

What is the overall theme (central topic, subject or concept) of your book

That we all have talents that God gave to us to help us fulfill our mission here on earth. Nobody was left out, but talents and skills differ and what is required of us all is to work with what has been given to us and increasing it.

Where does this book take place?

This is a non-fictional book

Who are the main characters and why are they important to the story?

not applicable

Why do you think that this book will appeal to readers?

To know that you also have what it takes to contribute to this world and live a satisfying life is what everyone in this world looks for. Our purpose on earth and this is what this book seeks to demonstrates hence it will appeal to all readers.

How is your book relevant in today’s society?

In today’s society originality pays a lot, unfortunately, some people only live in the shadows of others. This book seeks to demonstrate that we have different skills and what matters is not to sit and compare your skills with others but to go and immediately start putting your talents to work.

Is there any subject currently trending in the news that relates to your book?

Yes everything. People have become consumers only looking to some few people to become producers of products and services. It is all self-doubt and comparison that is killing our contribution to this world. The news and in fact media companies are looking for originality in entertainment and in educating the audience. You could be the next big thing.

What makes your book different from other books like it?

I have written this book with the simplest of language and fronts, not academical and jargons to create misunderstanding. Easy to read and very practical. You read and feel as if I have known the reader all my life

What do you want readers to take away from your writing?

If others are doing it, you can also do it. Only start immediately and do not give yourself reasons not to contribute to this world and live a fulfilled life. The more you delay the more you give yourself reasons not to put your talents to work and contribute your quota to this world.

How did you learn about the topic? (i.e. personal experience, education, etc.)

I have made some mistakes myself and delayed what I should have done long ago. I am however grateful that I have been given a second chance to manifest myself and contributing to this world in my own way.

Is there a particular passage from your book you’d like us to utilize? If so, please provide.

Yes, all the pages. You need to go through it and fully appreciate that the book seeks to demonstrate

What other books have you written?

This was my first ever published book, but my second book is out already on Amazon entitled ‘Love Lessons from The First Couple.: Before You Say I Do’. This is the link to purchase the second book - https://amzn. to/3d2A4Q2

The announced closure of John Carroll Leisure Centre has rocked the Radford community and hundreds of individuals have spoken out calling for its doors to remain open. We simply cannot stand by and let vital services like this disappear. John Carroll is the last remaining community facility in Radford, which is one of the most deprived areas of Nottingham. Quite simply removing it would be a devastating loss.

John Carroll Leisure Centre is at risk of closure as the Nottingham City Council have identified it as “at risk”. It is due to be permanently shut from June as part of large Council budget cuts. Leaders have justified this stating that John Carroll was the “least used facility” in comparison to other venues with the same high budget.

However, we feel that this is not acceptable as John Carroll is used and loved by people of all ages and has remained a constant meeting place for members of the community for decades. It is a safe space for women to come together, exercise, laugh and find joy. As one of the only places in Nottingham to offer female-only swimming classes it holds a key role in the mental and physical health for women in our city.

To take this service away would be to do a massive disservice to the women of Nottingham and leave them without a place to exercise freely. It also provides children with a place to go after school to build confidence and have fun playing sports that the underfunded schools in the area often cannot afford to offer.

John Carroll is not just a sports hub though and has successfully served as a polling centre many times and as a safe space for those to access support surrounding FGM. These examples are only a handful of the services the leisure centre has provided to the community over the decades. The space is being used; it is not an abandoned building to be knocked down. We need to invest in spaces that support community cohesion and collaboration.

By closing safe meeting spaces like this, you disperse people and the Council are offering no alternatives in the area. Emerging from a time of great isolation and loneliness in the shape of lockdown, we have to prioritize people and community. We need to foster co-operation and trust between people. We will need to meet and mix more so than ever before and this closure completely stops that for those in Radford, which is not acceptable.

This is more than a physical closure as this is a symbolic loss for communities that do so much for each other, yet consistently receive subpar support from the local government. In fact, in 2019 Nottingham Labour specifically promised to protect leisure centres from budget cuts in their local election manifesto.

We have to hold them accountable and protect the people of Radford. We strongly support the Save John Carroll campaign and urge the Council to reverse their decision. We cannot save money at the expense of people’s mental and physical health. It is nonnegotiable.

Find out more and how to oppose the closure at: https://www.savejohncarroll.co.uk/

Africans don’t just live to die. A response to the New York Times

Were it not for the notoriety of Western media’s often reductionist reporting of the Global South, I would be confounded by the New York Times article published on 4 January entitled “A Continent Where the Dead Are Not Counted”. Bylined from Lagos, its central thesis is that the low death rates from COVID-19 in “Africa” are because Africans do not report deaths.

It suggests that the actual death rate in countries on the continent could be anywhere from the publicly reported rates to the kinds of high rates reported in Europe and the Americas. What this implies is that death is so commonplace in “Africa” that if about 1 in every 1,000 people – the current reported death rate from COVID-19 in the US – died from a previously unknown illness in a matter of months, it could go unnoticed and unrecorded.

The article’s premise is astounding. The piece is neither reporting nor analysis as the evidence doesn’t go much beyond the anecdotal. The title is outlandish, lampooning an entire continent while the text itself only mentions only three of Africa’s 54 countries. Its underlying assumption is that if rich countries have suffered, Africa must have suffered worse. If that’s not the case, then it must be because the suffering has been rendered invisible by some uniquely African incompetence.

Its depiction of the continent will also ring false to many people who have seen how countries in Africa and the West have responded to the pandemic. When I flew to Kenya in late-January 2020, for instance, airport officials had already implemented temperature checks and contact tracing protocols. Even in March 2020, airports in Europe and the US were still largely operating as usual.

I had a similar experience travelling this winter. When my family wanted to travel from Nairobi to Tanzania, we required negative COVID-19 test results to be allowed entry. I called the National Influenza Centre and, within hours, a professional came to my home where she collected our samples donned in full personal protective equipment (PPE). This stood in stark contrast to when I’d travelled from New York to Kenya a month before. In the US, I struggled to obtain the necessary PCR test. When I did, my sample was taken by a nurse whose only protection from the hundreds of potential carriers she encountered each day was a surgical mask.

While these experiences are anecdotal, you can imagine my consternation when reading the New York Times article. Given the novelty of the coronavirus, the truth is that every country worldwide is facing the same problem: how to detect, classify and record deaths from COVID-19. It is widely accepted that the actual death rate is higher everywhere than is currently reported. The article doesn’t provide any evidence that reporting of COVID-19 deaths is less accurate in Africa than anywhere else, though it implies data collected by countries in Africa without the international stamp of approval are unreliable.

Strengthening vital registration systems in many countries is a genuine issue. However, there is huge variation between countries. Some such as Egypt, South Africa and Seychelles have compulsory universal registration systems. Others such as Nigeria and Niger, as the article correctly points out, lag behind. In my own country, Kenya, it is not possible to “bury loved ones in their yard at home”, as the article suggests, without a burial permit. Kenya is also building a compulsory digitised system with a single record capturing all vital and civil data for every Kenyan, a project more advanced and ambitious than in many high-income countries.

It also bears reiterating that official death records are not the only means of detecting a disease outbreak. Public officials have other tools for recognising aberrant mortality patterns including surveillance systems which report unusual events. This reporting is what traced the 2014 Ebola outbreak to its patient zero in the remote village of Gueckedou in southeastern Guinea.

More importantly, even in the absence of adequate testing, diagnosis and reporting, COVID-19 death rates on the scale seen in Western countries would have been a cause for alarm in any one of Africa’s 54 countries. Africans don’t just live to die!

The question addressed by the New York Times article does warrant serious analysis: what factors contribute to the pattern of morbidity and mortality from COVID-19 seen in African countries? Why is it different from early predictions? The answer will be nuanced, and there is emerging evidence from early scientific analyses.

Demography – Africa’s youthful population – may be an important factor, but it gets only a passing mention. Effective countermeasures implemented by governments may also be a strong explanatory element but is completely ignored.

Many countries implemented strict lockdowns early on. Innovations in detection, management and supply chain have improved country responses. Rwanda is utilising robots to support diagnosis. Other countries are using robust community healthcare systems to continue providing essential services. An unprecedented collaboration across the continent led by the African Union also contributed to strengthening testing, disease management, supplies, and, currently, vaccine preparedness.

These and many other positive stories hardly make headlines in mainstream Western media reporting. As Nanjala Nyabola points out in the Boston Review: “perhaps the long shadow that Western imperialism still casts on the continent encourages the lazy tendency to view Africa through the lens of the United States’ and Europe’s devastating experience, encouraging the assumption that Africa’s trajectory must either mimic the West in extension or opposition, rather than having its own trajectory produced by regional and national contexts.” Countries in Africa continue to suffer due to the direct and indirect consequences of the pandemic. Some leaders have done a poor job in managing the epidemic and every country has faced serious socioeconomic constraints. However, by and large, if one were looking to generalise, then a round of applause for a job well done would be due.

As long as reporting of Africa and other parts of the Global South continues to be addressed to an audience craving a glimpse into the strangeness of how the other half lives (or dies), such articles will continue to be churned out. What is lost with this imperialist view is incalculable. The dignity of the people of an entire continent. Serious analysis and comparison of approaches to solving global problems. The ability to learn from one another. The chance to see ourselves as part of a whole, more similar in our humanity than different. And the opportunity for true internationalism.

Article is taken from African Arguments.