Transcriber: Aishani Komath Reviewer: DD Chang
How many of you guys here can write your name?
If I give you a pen and paper and say, "Write your name. Can you write?"
How many of you guys can write here?
You can write your name?
(Laughter)
Okay, so it would amaze you
that the same program that the emcee talked about
had about 70 students on that adult literacy class
and out of the 70 students, no one could write their name.
These are people that were from Berekuso.
You'd be amazed today that there are adults
who can't even give the right dosage of drug to their ward
because they can't read a prescription.
You'd be amazed that there are adults in our country today
who don't even know that -
the green paper that we use in purchasing products
which is the 10 cedis, they don't even know what the 10 means.
They're only able to identify money by color.
So when they see green, they know it's ten cedis.
When they see blue, they know it's five cedis.
Are you surprised?
There are adults today
that are not able to make the right decisions
for their children and their wards because they believe
that it's better for a child to go to the farm than go to school.
Francis is one of the beneficiaries of our program.
I met Francis when I was the president of the African Renaissance Movement.
During that time,
we asked every single student in our class
to write your future career, what you wanted to be.
Francis said, "I want to be a pilot."
So I asked Francis a quick question.
"How do you think you can achieve this dream?"
and he said, "If my mother would stop taking me to the farm
and take me to school, I believe I can become a pilot."
You'd be amazed.
Today, Francis is actually one of the top students in his class.
The reason is that his mom and his dad
are actually part of the adult literacy class,
and they believe now that it's good for Francis to be in school.
These are decision makers for our country.
These are the people who decide who runs the country.
These are the people who decide whether you go to school or not.
These are the people who decide
whether it's better to use my money
to buy clothes for a funeral or to pay fees.
These are the people who actually go out to vote.
How many of you guys have actually been out to vote here?
You are the educated ones,
the ones who understand the policies,
the ones who understand the campaign messages,
the ones who understand
every single thing these leaders are talking about.
But these are the people who go out to vote.
This lady has no idea what President Mahama is talking about,
has no idea what NPP's talking about,
has no idea what PPP's talking about.
All she knows is that, "I'm going to vote for John Mahama because he's cute."
(Laughter)
Am I wrong? No.
These are our decision makers.
Samuel is one of the top students in our class.
Samuel joined the program as a mason.
When he came, he couldn't read, he couldn't write his name.
After three years running the program,
Samuel came up with an initiative through our entrepreneurship program,
our one-year intensive entrepreneurship program.
Samuel actually - during the time that the Ebola crisis
was very speculated in our country,
Samuel actually went online
with our technology program,
printed that document out,
went to every single individual in the Berekuso community and Adum -
that's a village right next to it -
to educate them on Ebola and the effects of Ebola on their lives.
Samuel would not have been able to do this without our program.
Today, Samuel is an assemblyman of Berekuso
(Applause)
Not only just that,
just about two months ago, Samuel took another initiative in the community.
His goal was that -
let's make Berekuso the cleanest community in Accra.
He gathered everyone in the community,
partnering with Ashesi University,
and he did a total cleaning of the whole town.
Today Berekuso is one of the neatest communities in Accra.
(Applause)
You'd be amazed, despite all these success stories,
one thing that intrigues me was when we wanted to elect
what we all call "class prefect."
I know in our adult literacy class,
you'd not expect us to have a class prefect, but we wanted one.
They said they wanted someone to lead them.
We had about 70 students in the program.
So I went up to them, and I was like, "Let's try and get someone to lead."
So we had a number of nominations, and then the lady, right there in the red,
she said - her name is Sandra -
she said, "I also want to become a class rep."
I was like, "Why not? I think it's a very good idea."
Then the men came in, "Hey, no!
It's not got to have it.
How can a woman lead us?
This small girl, who is she?"
This is what they were saying, some of the comments that came out.
We heard the problem
I told them, "We're not going to do this for now,"
because I realized the big problem, which was the mindset.
These people, in as much as they are that old,
wouldn't even believe that it was right for a woman to take a leadership position
which was wrong, and this is something that's even in our communities
and even in our leadership positions today.
I developed - I worked with my team
and also some students from Princeton University
to develop what we called the "Mindset Leadership Program."
During this period,
we had people coming in to talk about the importance of female leadership,
the importance of not solving problems with violence,
and even the importance of being able to have dialogue on issues
than rather, you know, taking it to a different level.
Six months later, Sandra became the class prefect.
You're amazed, right?
And do you know what they used to call her?
She's actually 18.
The oldest student in my class is 60; the youngest is 18.
And the 60-year-old men used to call her "Madam."
I know, right? It was amazing.
She did very well.
We wanted to expand this program. This program was doing very well.
We have a program running in the Volta region.
We have one running in the eastern region.
We're now taking off the one in Accra
and this is going to take time.
It costs me about $10,000 to run one of these projects for three years.
That's very expensive.
How can we make this cheaper? How can we make this innovative?
How can we make this expand faster than possible?
So for my final year project
as a computer science major in Asheshi University,
I developed what we called the "Adesua Ye Learning Tool."
The Adesua Ye Learning Tool, basically, as you can see -
Daka's using it -
is an app that can teach you how to read without a tutor.
So anyone, your mom - and that's actually a grandma, she's 56,
so she can actually take an app, someone who's never used a phone,
and prior to even using this app,
the only buttons she knew on the phone was the red and green button.
Call, end call, pick the call, end call.
But she was able to use this app for about three weeks,
and afterwards,
now she can read and write with this application
Just with three weeks.
(Applause)
I know that the question I always keep getting after this,
"Is it on the App Store? Is it on the Play Store?"
No, not yet.
(Laughter)
We're still doing some beta testing,
and basically what we're trying to do is make it more efficient,
so that even people who are using it
because right now it runs on Android,
so people who are using even J2ME phones,
so that's the "yams,"
would get access to some sort of learning tool
before we launch it out.
Because we realize our target market,
which is the adults,
most of them use J2ME phones.
That's Symbian phones. That's yams.
What we call the yams - the Samsungs and the small ones.
What does the future look like?
These are three students who are seriously sitting in the class
trying to learn.
Do you know what they are learning?
A, B, C, D.
I know. It sounds nothing to you.
But the joy that they got
after being able to just pronounce the alphabet was amazing.
You could literally find one student who just got up and started shouting,
an adult who was about 40-something started shouting,
"I can pronounce the alphabet!"
I know it doesn't mean anything to you, but it meant a lot to these people.
What our future looks like
is that we hope to expand this project not just in Ghana
but across the continent.
We believe that with the technology we have,
we're going to be able to get a lot more people using this platform.
And even people who are in non-English-speaking countries
can use this app to learn how to speak in English.
What do I leave you with?
I know one thing that we all,
one thing that stops us from making very good decisions
and taking initiatives and doing great things is fear.
I had fear when I was starting this program.
When I started, I didn't have money.
I didn't have any resources to start.
What I had was just an idea.
I walked into a town one day, and I said,
"Do you want to learn how to read?"
They said, "Yes." I said, "Okay, let's go and learn."
I had 50 cities that I started this project with.
Do not let fear determine what decision you make.
Let hope and belief help you make that decision.
Don't let society,
don't let people,
don't let lack of capital,
don't let anything else hold you.
Look at the problems around you in your community
and see which one you can start doing right now.
One person asked me a question that,
"How do you educate all these adults?"
And I told them, "I can show you how to do it."
Any time you walk from your house to the bus stop,
to take a taxi, or to travel to work,
any adult you see on the road,
just tell them what a word means in English.
So take a pen or take a book, and tell them that "krataa" means book.
Every single day, and I promise you, within a year,
they will know more than even you know yourself.
That's the beginning.
The beginning doesn't need a huge start.
I started very small
with just about maybe 10 students.
It was a very difficult time. I had a lot of challenges.
One big challenge was that they couldn't comprehend that -
How can you have someone this young teach me, an old man,
who I even know better than?
But we found a way around it.
We broke them up into groups,
and we did a one-on-one session with them.
So we got to the point they came to understand
that it was right for you to have someone to stand in front of you and teach.
I call it a success.
I believe that we've done our part,
and we're still working towards something greater and something bigger.
And I know each and every one here has a great dream
or a great idea within them
or even identified a problem.
Maybe you might not be able to do it by yourself,
maybe you can just partner with someone,
maybe you can volunteer or work with anyone in your community
to achieve a particular dream.
That's my class.
It's amazing, I know. I really like this picture.
But that's the class that graduated.
We graduated 50 students at the end of the program.
And out of the 50 students, some of them,
like the speaker mentioned, the emcee mentioned, sorry,
some of them are assemblymen, some of them are unit men.
One of the biggest successes that I found in this program
was when one of our students actually started another adult literacy program
in another town.
(Applause)
This guy had no resources.
This gentleman had no resources, no money, nothing.
But he got up one day,
found a church in the next community,
and started this program.
And today, he has about ten students that he's teaching every single day.
This is someone who couldn't even write his name, but today, he's making a change.
We have more than they have.
We have better resources. We have a formal education.
It doesn't take much.
All it takes is just a step.
I believe transformation is possible within a generation.
At that point,
when we decide to make it happen.
I believe we are the world,
I believe we are one,
I believe we are united, and I believe we are change.
Thank you.
(Applause)