Falling asleep on an empty stomach and never waking up. My dream is that nobody ever experiences this again.
In the 2000s in Ghana, there wasn’t famine or war, and the economy was growing. However, hunger remained a silent killer. Parents lost their kids, and kids lost their parents to deaths from starvation.
Whilst living in a town called Sogakope in the Volta Region, I had friends who’d go through days of not being fed, some of whom died along the way. Others never got their lives together because they had to engage in all sorts of perilous activities to survive. However, in 2015, Ghana reached the MDG Target 1.C*8 of halving the number of hungry people. Yet, 5% of the population continued to experience chronic hunger.*9 Being a young person, I felt powerless, convinced that the power to make a difference laid solely with the government.
My perspective changed after I attended a program named Barcamp Ghana when I was 22. During the program, I realized I wasn’t the only young person who felt it was the government’s job to solve the country’s issues. But when the moderator asked, “If it falls to the government to tackle all the wicked problems, what then is your job in society?,” I realized the youth must stand up and do something.
That was when I decided to join a group of friends to start a non-profit called Amaba Health and Humanitarian Aid (H&H) Volunteers Ghana to feed old people and children of poor immigrants living on the streets. Still, I knew that was not enough and I had to do more to realize my dream of a world with zero hunger.
Hence, I am now studying economics at a graduate school in Canada to gain a global perspective and improve my skills. Canada is a friendly country with a diverse culture, making it an excellent place to develop an international network and exchange thoughts. I’m specializing in international trade because free trade gives people living in the poorest parts of the world access to affordable, nutritious food. My long-term career goal is to render a broad spectrum of economic knowledge to key international trade policymakers in Ghana and Africa.
Friends who died of hunger never had the chance to reach their full potential. And from my perspective, all these are lost potential for Ghana. We must not allow any more tragedies like my friends. I dream of a prosperous world where people can feed their families with a nutritious meal—a world where everyone goes to bed happy on a full stomach.