Features
Ghanaian Diaspora in Finland and entrepreneurship
There are a number of Ghanaian businesses in the Diaspora
Experts have noted that the rise of various Diasporas and their economic exploits has been a huge advantage regarding financial resources and skills or knowledge for development in many countries.
It is becoming increasingly common for members of the Diaspora to become entrepreneurs in their host country and eventually transfer their businesses to their country of origin. Moreover, many countries are making efforts to attract their Diaspora members for investment and development efforts.
As I wrote some time ago, the migration-remittances-development nexus has already evolved members of the Diaspora into transnational agents whose activities involve the circulatory flows of remittances or people and their ideas.
Diaspora expertise and entrepreneurs
There are many members of the Ghanaian Diaspora in the advanced countries who have acquired huge expertise, knowledge and resources (academically, economically, technically or technologically, etc.) and would like to get back home to establish something productive.
Some are engaged in the freighting business to transport goods in containers to Africa, while others own small companies and other businesses, particularly in the services sector, and they can even use that to finance other businesses at home.
Many can also offer consulting services for the growth of our dear nation.
Universities of Applied Sciences in Finland
There are over 20 universities of applied sciences in Finland, aside from the multidisciplinary and specialized universities.
According to information on the website of the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture, the universities of applied sciences operate as public limited companies in the Ministry’s administrative branch.
The Finnish name for a university of applied sciences is “ammattikorkeakoulu”, which literally means “school of higher vocational education,” although such universities are also considered polytechnics.
Entrepreneurial education in Finland
Existing studies show that entrepreneurial education has rapidly developed in the last two decades and continues to do so in many countries.
Scholars define entrepreneurial education as activities intended to develop people who want to try to become entrepreneurs and enhance their understanding and knowledge about entrepreneurship and business.
Generally, in Finland, studies at the universities of applied sciences include plenty of practical exercises and a practical training period.
For example, the Haaga-Helia School is one of Finland’s largest business universities and is owned by a foundation run by Helsinki’s business community. It is fully supervised and accredited by the Finnish government through the Ministry of Education and Culture.
Haaga-Helia’s Research and Business Development Centre also produces training services for associations and companies. It is thus obvious that the institution can easily build connections for its students with potential companies, entrepreneurship or self-employment.
Ghanaian migrant entrepreneurs
Most migrants in Finland, including the Ghanaian Diaspora, are gainfully employed either as paid workers in the Finnish public and private sectors or as entrepreneurs and self-employed, according to researchers who have studied entrepreneurship among migrants in Finland.
Many Ghanaian migrants in Finland are engaging in entrepreneurial activities. I know that most of them have set up their own businesses, either in the health sector, the cleaning sector, shopkeeping, a salon or barbering.
What I do not know is whether the entrepreneurs had entrepreneurial education anywhere or from one of the many universities of applied sciences in Finland.
Many of these Ghanaian-immigrant entrepreneurs in Finland are either planning to expand or have already expanded the businesses they have set up here in Finland. At least I know some of these, and I plan to write about them in due course. Thank you!
By Perpetual Crentsil
Email: perpetualcrentsil@yahoo.com
One of the issues we have been grappling with as a nation is corruption, and it has had such a devastating effect on our national development. I have been convinced that until morality becomes the foundation upon which our governance system is built, we can never go forward as a nation.
Our traditional practices, which have shaped our cultural beliefs, have always espoused values that have kept us along the straight and the narrow and have preserved our societies since ancient times.
These are values that frown on negative habits like stealing, cheating, greediness, selfishness, etc. Our grandparents have told us stories of societies where stealing was regarded as so shameful that offenders, when caught, have on a number of instances committed suicide.
In fact, my mother told me of a story where a man who was living in the same village as her mother (my grandmother), after having been caught stealing a neighbour’s cockerel, out of shame committed suicide on a mango tree. Those were the days that shameful acts were an abomination.
Tegare worship, a traditional spiritual worship during which the spirit possesses the Tegare Priest and begins to reveal secrets, was one of the means by which the society upheld African values in the days of my grandmother and the early childhood days of my mother.
Those were the days when the fear of being killed by Tegare prevented people from engaging in anti-social vices. These days, people sleeping with other people’s wives are not uncommon.
These wrongful behaviour was not countenanced at all by Tegare. One was likely going to lose his life on days that Tegare operates, and so unhealthy habits like coveting your neighbour’s wife was a taboo.
Stealing of other people’s farm produce, for instance, could mean certain death or incapacitation of the whole or part of the body in the full glare of everybody. People realised that there were consequences for wrongdoing, and this went a long way to motivate the society to adhere to right values.
Imagine a President being sworn into office and whoever administers the oath says, “Please say this after me: I, Mr. …., do solemnly swear by God, the spirits of my ancestors and the spirits ruling in Ghana, that should I engage in corrupt acts, may I and my family become crippled, may madness become entrenched in my family, may incurable sicknesses and diseases be my portion and that of my family, both immediate and extended.”
Can you imagine a situation where a few weeks afterwards the President goes to engage in corrupt acts and we hear of his sudden demise or incapacitation and confessing that he engaged in corrupt acts before passing or before the incapacitation—and the effect it will have on his successor? I believe we have to critically examine this option to curb corruption.
My grandmother gave me an eyewitness account of one such encounter where a woman died instantly after the Tegare Priest had revealed a wrong attitude she had displayed during the performance on one of the days scheduled for Tegare spirit manifestation.
According to her story, the Priest, after he had been possessed by the spirit, declared that for what the woman had done, he would not forgive her and that he would kill. Instantly, according to my grandmother, the lady fell down suddenly and she died—just like what happened to Ananias and his wife Sapphira in Acts Chapter 5.
NB: ‘CHANGE KOTOKA INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT TO KOFI BAAKO
By Laud Kissi-Mensah
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A path towards healing
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BY ROBERT EKOW GRIMMOND-THOMPSON
