Liberty Summit: Young People urged to hold high their Passion

The Dean of Business Entrepreneurship and Communication Arts at the Academic City University in Accra, Professor Enoch Opoku Antwi at a Liberty Summit at the University of Cape Coast has emphasized the need for young people to hold high their passion and pursue their dreams.

According to him, the culture of the Ghanaian society did not allow people to come out of their shells and that, it was time the youths were educated on how they could be the change in society.

He stated that when young people changed their mindset and ideologies towards the Ghanaian society, they would make a great impact, stressing, “the system is not equitable for all to enjoy, hence, the need to educate the youth on the phenomenon, for them to make informed decisions”.

The Campus Liberty Summit was organized by the Institute for Liberty and Economic Education (ILEE), a non profit organization at Cape Coast.

It was to create a platform for young people to learn about their freedoms and opportunities and prepare them to be innovative and productive leaders.

Participants were educated on how they could be the change in the society.

”If you want to influence any system, you can do it from within or without and that is leadership. If  you can’t do it alone, join a political party, that can help you bring the change you require”, the Professor, who is also a Leadership and Governance Consultant stated.

The Executive President of ILEE, Eric Coffie, indicated that the summit was to promote the ideas of liberty and educate young people about their individual rights, which would enable them to show interest in national issues and make informed decisions.

“They have become oblivious with issues happening at the national level . Most people don’t understand the freedoms the constitution guarantees them and ILEE hopes to create a system that promotes understanding to national based issues”, he maintained.

The Executive President of ILEE, touched on job creation and indicated that “we have been conditioned to rely on the government for jobs after university, which is inappropriate, considering the state of our population. The government cannot create jobs for all of us, hence, the need to educate the youth through such liberty summit to have interest in entrepreneurship, which will in turn create jobs for others”.

He stressed that the private sector was the engine of growth so there was the need to encourage innovation and creativity.

“We are embarking on this project to educate the youth especially tertiary students to attach importance to entrepreneurship and liberty issues to help create the future that we want”.

A Senior Lecturer at the Department of Classics and Philosophy at the University of Cape Coast, Dr Eric Usifoh, said change was a necessity and while people changed due to the needs of the time, it should not affect the foundation that built their culture.

”Our culture promotes common good and humanitarian principles that support each other. Hence, the need to attach importance to our culture as we change but imperative to move away from the bad cultural practices”.