Students of the Hope College in Gomoa Fete in the Central region had a life-changing experience and renewed hope when the Vice-Chancellor of UPSA, Professor Abednego Feehi Okoe Amartey visited the orphanage to share his life experience to motivate them as the special guest of honour and keynote speaker at the college’s 2019 graduation ceremony.
The VC, who was addressing the graduands on Saturday, June 9th, challenged them to aspire to be transformational world leaders despite their current predicament as orphans.
He recounted the many emotional and financial difficulties he underwent as a child after he (Prof. Amartey) lost his mom at an early age and how it took the benevolence of some family relations for him to have ‘tasted’ education.
In spite of this, the professor of marketing says he remained focus in his quest to developing himself and to making the world a better place for himself and humanity.
“Life, as it is, is full of challenges, and one of the early lessons that I learnt was the fact that life does not give you what you deserve, but what you negotiate and fight for. Never let the blows that life is sure to hit you as you journey on, put an end to the dreams you have of making it to the top. Challenges are the necessary raw materials for progress. Never allow any circumstance to determine your worth in life.” he emphasized.
Prof. Okoe Amartey also congratulated the management of the institution for successfully navigating and grooming the College to its current enviable standard.
He said: “an institution which places a high premium on the education of marginalized persons in our society such as the orphaned, the impoverished and the underprivileged is worth congratulating. To have enrolled more than 800 students, many of whom would have missed secondary education and who have received either full or partial scholarship is no mean achievement.”
He added that the institution’s focus on the marginalized in society was consistent with UPSA’s mantra of combining scholarship and professionalism. He said the introduction of the Vice Chancellor’s Endowment Fund (VCEF)– a fund he set up to provide financial support for the needy and marginalized but brilliant students, was aimed at giving back to society.
The Vice-Chancellor, in his concluding remarks to the 85-graduating students, urged them to take up leadership roles within their society, churches, schools and even homes in order to nurture their leadership skills.
“Realize that if you are always trying to be normal, you will never know how amazing you can be. All of us have an inbuilt, God-given capacity, to be responsible, to rule, to be productive, to orchestrate change and to take charge. We have the capacity to take the people that we have been given the opportunity to lead, from where they are to where they ought to be!”
