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Asare
Asare was hired to be our driver while in Humjibre. At 24, he carries himself with the confidence of anyone his age. His cell phone rings constantly. When we volunteers tease him about who’s calling all the time, he says it’s either his Mom or his Dad calling. But we know it’s the myriad of girlfriends missing his presence in Accra. Given the nonstop calls, it appeared the city of Accra had come to a standstill in his absence.

One early evening there was a spectacular thunderstorm that blew in out of nowhere and caught Asare, Diantha (one of the volunteers) and myself ducking under cover in the house that was being used by our Ghanaian hosts to prepare our meals. I don’t recall how we got on the subject, but Asare was very willing to share his views on what’s wrong with Ghana and with Africa in general. I was impressed by the considered opinions he had on the subject but also surprised at how similar his comments were to what I hear at home in my own country. The crux of what he said was that Ghanaian leaders don’t listen to their people and as a result, very few people vote.

I won’t bore you with the details of the conversation, but his conclusion was interesting. While I would expect most young people in his situation (high school educated, employed and fluent in English) to be optimistic and nationalistic about their country, I found in him quite the opposite. The only way to fix the problem in his mind was for him to emigrate. One way or the other, he’s getting out. I told him if he’s serious he needs to research this carefully, find out what other countries are looking for in terms of skills and education and make himself marketable. Above all, plan for a long wait as the sluggish economic situation in developed countries is causing their governments to rethink their immigration policies. I also told him that many immigrants who come to Canada do so in the hopes that their children will have a better life but that the parents themselves can only look forward to working many long hours for many years in a strange country, with a strange climate surrounded by unfamiliar people.

Ernest

Ernest is educated (college), lives near Ghana’s second city of Kumasi and knows what’s going on in the world. He’s part of the very small workforce that Habitat employs in Ghana to keep the construction projects going in all the various affiliates around the country. He’s a couple of years older than Asare and seems to have many marketable skills in construction. He too had strong opinions about his country’s government but rather than throwing in the towel, Ernest said he would only consider leaving his country for the chance to go to school. After school, he insists, he would return to Ghana to make his way in life. In his opinion, developing countries will only reach their potential if their citizens decide to live out their lives at home. The problem, he said, is that the educated and skilled leave and deprive their home countries of these skills.

To this I agreed. As much as I recognize my country’s desire to receive immigrants and agree that immigration is good for my country, I told Ernest that in my opinion places like Canada perpetrate a sort of bait-and-switch with immigrants. On one hand, it recruits them and welcomes them with promises of a better life – and even searches out those with skills and education. On the other, it doesn’t recognize their skills when they arrive, forcing many people with backgrounds as doctors, nurses and engineers into low end jobs. Needing to put food on the table right away to make ends meet, the immigrants rarely get the opportunity to go back to school to upgrade their skills. Having invested everything they have in getting to Canada, they can’t go back home.

On my travels I keep seeing billboards advertising for people to come to Canada. Paradoxically, Canada skims off the most skilled people in developing countries and puts them to work in jobs they are overqualified for, while depriving the countries of origin the little skilled labour they have. It seems we recruit them, put them into jobs we ourselves wouldn’t do and then wonder why the countries from which we recruit continue to founder and fail despite billions of dollars in development aid. Is this so complicated? How many taxi drivers does Canada need with PhDs?

I understand Asare’s point of view. But if we’re ever going to crack the problem of poverty in the world, there need to be more people like Ernest. Give them the education they need and they will be the drivers of change in the world.