Dear World,

My name is Godwin Yidana. I’m from Ghana, West Africa.

Ghanaians talk a lot and we have a reputation for being friendly. However, our culture also says that we should not question our seniors. No matter what our seniors say or do, we must accept their word as absolute truth, even if they are mistaken or lying.

I’ve gotten myself into a lot of hot water for challenging my seniors ever since I can remember.

During my first weeks in kindergarten I walked out of school, which was a tree in our village, because the only thing we learnt for weeks was how to count from one to thirty. I told my teacher, “I want to go past one,” and left the tree and walked back home. My parents were horrified and I got in trouble.

When I return to my village today, my cousins still shout, “I want to go past 1!” when they see me.

I don’t know where this tendency to question authority came from but it’s always been there.

Both my parents are illiterate. I was born in the poorest region of Ghana: Bolgatanga, Upper East Region, and grew up in Bolga and one of Ghana’s few conflict zones, Bawku. Most of my friends were involved in the conflict. This is how I managed to pick up a lot of different languages—the ones in Bolga are quite different to the ones in Bawku. And then I picked up more when I went to university in Cape Coast.

While some of my friends were killing each other, I had my ear to the radio trying to learn new English words. I also spent time counseling my friends not to fight and to stay in school. Sometimes I succeeded, sometimes I didn’t.

I got in trouble in high school for standing up for students who were treated unfairly. I mediated conflicts between the students and the school authorities; some were quite serious involving police. One of our teachers impregnated three of my fellow female class mates in junior high and we were not supposed to say anything about it. But I spoke up so the girls could sit their exams and the teacher was sent away. My nickname in high school became ‘Kofi Annan,’ even though I questioned authority and took teachers to task over negative practices.

I got in trouble at university for questioning the rote learning methods that don’t encourage us to think. I also got in trouble for questioning corrupt practices, like taking money from students who wanted better grades. Even so, I was invited to lecture in my department for my national service after I graduated, even though I gave the teachers hell as a student and while I was lecturing.

My parents tell me they suffered because I got into trouble so much, including questioning the pastor at church because he wouldn’t allow us to question the Bible, but I tell them that I made it this far because I don’t accept the status quo and will always challenge myself and others to be better.

Just because we were born in poverty doesn’t mean we have to die in it. I didn’t have one pair of shoes until junior high. I had never slept on a mattress until senior high school where we lived in dorms where mattresses were provided to us. I slept on a mat on the floor until my first year of senior high.

This is why I have trouble accepting excuses for second-best from some of my fellow Ghanaians. There is no excuse for second best, especially those who have had relative privileges compared with some of us who had to struggle every day just to feed ourselves.

Godwin Yidana, G-lish

I’ve always wanted to change the world, but it’s not easy in a culture where you are not supposed to question the status quo and people are so poor and easily corruptible. So, it was a relief to get involved volunteering for NGOs near the University of Cape Coast when I started university. I volunteered for years at one NGO. My nickname there was ‘the do-er’.

Please do not tell me ‘can’t’ because I will show you ‘can’. (Incidentally, I was saying this long before Obama came along.)

I was one of two Ghanaians chosen to attend the Global Youth Conference on HIV/AIDS and development in South Africa in 2003 during my first year at university and this opened my eyes to the problem of not questioning authority once more.

Young people from all over the world spent eight weeks traveling throughout South Africa meeting various groups of people living with HIV/Aids. That was the time when the South African Government had the policy that HIV Aids was not real—they said it didn’t exist. I understood the frustration of being in a country that denied HIV’s existence. The government wouldn’t give sufferers access to the drugs. We worked with HIV positive groups to campaign. I saw then that access to information was extremely important to empower yourself, especially when you’re sick and discriminated against.

After this, I worked for the West African Aids foundation in Accra as a volunteer during summer. Here, I did outreach VCT and also spent time counseling people who just discovered they were HIV positive. I accompanied those people to break the news to their families because they were often too afraid to do it themselves.

I understood that information access is absolutely fundamental to empowerment and development. There is so much misunderstanding about this disease and so many issues in Ghana and in Africa.

In 2008, together with my partner, I organized a game of football in Bawku between the two warring sides. Bawku is the area in conflict where I grew up and my family still live. That was for the UN’s International Day of Peace, September 21. This was our initiative. We didn’t get funding for it.

This conflict is between the Mamprusi and Kusasi tribes. I have seen countless friends killed during my life in this conflict. While Ghana is officially the most peaceful nation in Africa, pockets of conflict like Bawku rage on.

Despite what seemed like a conspiracy to stop us from holding the event (we refused to bribe the powers at be to hold a simple football game), we managed to hold a football match that everyone said could not happen. No violence erupted. The two sides begged us to play longer, even though it was hot and the middle of Ramadan and the Muslim members couldn’t even drink water. Nothing like this had ever happened in Bawku before. I only wish we had the means to do more.

The Bawku fighting has evolved into a ‘revenge’ cycle now where everyone has forgotten the original dispute (chieftancy). Young people are so poor and with no prospects at all that they have nothing to lose by killing each other. The elders bring the weapons in from across the border—the same elders that talk about peace with the National Peace Council. There are no social centres or counseling for any of the victims. I know that phones are used to spread the violence. If we could create an early warning system for outbreaks of violence that could be transmitted on phones, perhaps we could stem it before it spreads. We could provide phone-based counseling too.

But it has to involve the youth—and they must be allowed to express themselves in the presence of elders.

I think the current curfew that only allows women to ride motorcycles helps curtail the violence. Some women do the killing, but men do most of the killing in Bawku. Stopping men and boys from moving quickly—on motorcycles—is a smart idea. Women should have a greater role in mediating the Bawku conflict. If they had the main role, I think Bawku would have a chance at resolving the conflict. But, as a young Ghanaian man, I’m not supposed to say this.

Bawku also happens to be a jumping off point that Ghanaians use to cross the Sahara in irregular migration to Europe. It’s on the border with Togo and Burkina Faso. However, there is only one information centre to prepare Ghanaians on what to expect if they try to illegally migrate. That centre is in the very south of Ghana, nowhere near where it is most needed.

A lot of our problems can be reduced if we had better access to information—and that can take many forms.

When I participated in the Joint EU-UN Initiative on Migration and Development in Brussels, Belgium, in December 2008, I networked with Ghanaians in Europe, and Europeans too. As a result of this, I brokered an agreement with December 18 (www.december18.net) in Belgium to host a programme online for youth migration on the International Day of Migration for young people aged between 15 and 30, internationally. This was a success. Taking IT Global supported us. On the same day, we held a radio programme in Kumasi, Ghana, that was hosted by Boss FM about migration for young people. A returned ‘irregular’ migrant shared his experiences about the ordeal trying to reach Europe crossing the desert.

There is a huge myth shared across Africa that just being in a developed country will make you rich. The reality is a shock for migrants. If they knew the harsh reality before leaving, they might stay home instead. But why would they want to stay home in a culture that does not value the opinions of young people? In a culture where they cannot get access to the information they need to develop themselves?

Climate change is going to disproportionately affect poorer nations. Glaciers have already melted in Bolivia, completely. They’re gone. They are melting throughout the entire world. We are already seeing internal migration in Ghana due to the effect of changing seasons on farmers in the north. Migration will increase hugely around the world due to climate change.

If Europeans think “illegal” immigrants are a problem now, wait for another 20 years when it becomes unbearable to live in certain parts of the world and people have no choice but to try and move elsewhere, to places like Europe.

All these problems, fundamentally, stem from lack of knowledge and education. Citizens of developed countries don’t realize their good fortune in access to knowledge through television programmes, in the hundreds of magazines they can read, in the endless radio programmes, and now the Internet. Despite their access to information, they seem to be in denial about global warming.

In Ghana and much of the developing world we don’t have any of this. There are few magazines. The information on television is often outdated and concentrated on government, sport and politics. Newspapers are sensationalist and tabloid-like. Most people can’t afford internet access, and even if they can, they don’t use it effectively. Radio is still our biggest source of information and it is flooded with politics. People don’t know even simple things.

However, like we saw in Iran during the elections, ‘citizen media’ and mobile technology is empowering people, bypassing traditional modes of information transfer. Africa is the world’s largest growing mobile phone market. Almost everyone has a phone. They might not be able to eat, but they have a phone. That tells you how badly people want to connect with each other and the world.

Imagine if we could empower people with information through their phone—whether delivered by text, another human, or some internet function? Imagine if we could get something like Wikipedia to our phones? I know you can already access the internet on a phone, but most here can’t afford anything like an iPhone.

Imagine, though, if you could send a text to an info provider that said “Pregnant”, and it sent you back information about how to deal with unwanted pregnancies? Or what to do with a pregnancy you wished to keep?

Imagine if you could do this for a HIV positive person in countries like The Gambia where the President now claims to be a healer and denies drugs to sufferers?

Imagine if victims of violence in Bawku could participate in an early warning system using phones?

Or, if potential migrants could get informed before they embark on the perilous journey across the desert where many die?

Or if citizens of the most polluting countries in the world could get updates on the rates in which glaciers are melting and malaria is spreading due to CO2 emissions and global warming?

Imagine the savings to countries in Europe if potential migrants were empowered to stay home?

Certainly, information mobilization will be democratizing—for good and bad ends.

As someone who has struggled in a culture where self-expression is not encouraged, I look forward to the day when Ghanaians can freely access information and express themselves.

I can’t wait to work with other open-minded, forward-thinking people who want to find solutions to serious problems.

Godwin.

P.s. Please share your ideas here. We can make some change together, if we all make a little effort.