Journey So Far With Emmanuel Quarmyne

Prince: Thank you very much sir for giving us this opportunity to have

an interaction with you on ‘’the Journey So Far’’. We know you as

Emmanuel Quarmyne; can you share with us when and where you were born?

Emmanuel: I was born in Ghana at KorleBu Hospital, grew up in this

country spending most of my time in Labone and Darkuman where I have

being living all this time. I am the middle born out of three

siblings. My dad is an Auto Engineer and my mum a nurse.

Prince: What are the schools you have attended?

Emmanuel: I did attend St. Anthony Primary School to JHS,preceded to

Ada SHS after which I continued University of Ghana for a Bachelor of

Arts Degree in Sociology with English.

Prince: Judging your achievements, I am convinced, it relates to what

you accomplished whiles in school. Can you share with us those

academic records?

Emmanuel: Since leaving school I have being involved in charity work

that I co-founded whiles in the University of Ghana. I took a course

in MANAGEMENT OF NGO at the University of Ghana Business School and

one of the course requirement was to come up with a mock NGO and

present in class. That was how the idea for my charity was born and I

co-founded with two American ladies I met in the University of Ghana.

Coincidentally I was reading Sociology which was my major from the

University of Ghana. My sociology major and NGO class experience is

what I am using today with my charity work. My charity is called A Ban

Against Neglect (ABAN). And what we do is to provide opportunities to

the marginalised to learn a trade and get some income for themselves.

This we did by getting them to recycle waste materials that we find on

the streets into products that we sell and the proceeds goes towards

their upkeep.

Prince: What was your inspiration to become a social entrepreneur?

Emmanuel: I would say it is a bit of faith and dedication. These are

basic principles and I know you’ve heard about them about thousand

times and how they work. In school when I started the charity, I was

stunted a lot because I was dealing with recyclable materials and

picking sachet bags on the streets, which made many, brand me as

Zoomlion. Today the very people who teased me back in school call me

and ask me for employment. So it is really a lot of dedication, once

you know you are on the right lane and get to speak to the agenda; in

no time you will bear fruit. I’ve being doing this for five years now,

and we compare very well to established NGOs that have being around

for about 20 years, so if you ask me what inspires me or propels me,

it is just the basic principles, doing the hard work and sticking to

the agenda.

Prince: When you discovered those basic principles, can you share with

us how you’ve being able to implement them to get to this stage?

Emmanuel: I just by initial happen to do small things very well;

sometimes that’s all you need to do, master the little things. You

don’t have to be a professor in rocket science to be a successful

person. Once I decided that was the opportunity I had, I didn’t let

go, I just stuck to it and did it very well. This is why I keep doing

everything.

That’s the same advice I will give to anybody.

Prince: How has the journey being so far?

Emmanuel: The journey has being exciting, challenging and very

thoughtful. Traditionally young professionals will go into mainstream

banking, technology and the white colour jobs work for several years

and in their late 40s and 50s, after they’ve had experience in the

industry they then decide to give back to the society, and start an

NGO. I have gone the other way round; I finished school and started

charity. I am sort of learning what I should be learning in my 40s

dealing with destitute people, and it’s being very exciting for me,

I’ve come a long way.

Prince: What are some of the challenges you’ve faced so far?

Emmanuel: Challenges I faced in my line of working dealing with

marginalized people is that you are helping somebody who does not have

anything and expect they would be very grateful to you and you are one

of the happiest people on earth because everyone is excited because of

the help you are giving to people, but that’s not always the case.

Sometimes we get a lot of **flack** from same people we are supposed

to be helping and empowering. And in the country where illiteracy is

very high, dealing with uneducated persons can be difficult, because

when you look into that, they misinterpret everything as you know

there is spiritual quotations to every thing, there is mistrust, we

get a lot of **flack** coming from this very same people that we

helping. You should not always look for the gratitude from the people

or the work that you doing, it is just like a teacher, who teaches a

primary kid and the kid doesn’t realise how essential the teacher is

till when they grow to become adults and remember Mr. Mensa from class

three and now recognise the works they did for their lives. That’s the

nature of our work, it teaches you not to be give up, it’s toughens

you up. In my young age, I thought of experience what people in the

40s and 50s experience. In my leadership role as well, I sort of

understand the psyche of the people a lot better than I would have

just work in a regular bank or someplace. Don’t look for the reward

immediately all the time and even in terms of finance, beyond dealing

with people, money is not an instant reward. When I started this in

school, people mocked me because there were opportunities to go work

with government institutions right up after school, do national

service and hope you will get permanent employment at the place after

the national service and everyone was struggling to make it big right

after school. But I started to do “Zoomlion” job and today, I am not a

financially secured person but I am not a beggar as well and I am able

to do the things I want to do and afford with this same “Zoomlion”

job; so the reward was not instant but its opened me up, I’ve met

tonnes of people around the globe, my network is huge. So just keep

doing the things you do, do them very well and the opportunities will

come, don’t look for instant reward.

Prince: As ABAN, what do you do as an organisation?

Emmanuel: ABAN started as an NGO that recruits street girls’ mostly

teenage girls and we get them to recycle waste products from the

streets, mostly pure water sachet bags that litter the streets of

Accra. So we would wash and sanitise pure bags and make gift items.

And then we sell, mostly in the US, cofounders of the organisation are

Americans, and the proceeds goes towards the girls education and

vocational skills. After a while we realised that not every street

girl wanted the help, some girls we bring into the compound where we

house them for two years with shelter and some being the first time,

they’ve had a roof over their head would decide they want to go back

to the streets and live their free lives. So we had to revamp the

programs and now we are offering help to marginalised young people

still concentrating on girls. We now look for the x-factor in people

when we are recruiting them, we want people who are not necessarily on

the street but people who want to change their lives. So a girl can be

in a poor rural community, but she is gotten pregnant and cannot

continue school but just wanting an opportunity to just do better with

herself then we recruit such a girl and be able to help them achieve

those goals. Our age limit is 17 to 22 years old but we do have

exceptions if the girl has the qualities we looking for. And today

we’ve gone beyond getting the girls to make the products that we sell

for their education; we have now setup an offshoot of ABAN that we

call ABAN community employment. So now we’ve recruited 10

professionals from the Aburi town where we operate and we get them sew

all our products for us. The girls still play a role in making the

products by washing and sanitizing but we leave the headache of making

the products to the professional so that the girls can have time for

their rehabilitation programs.

Prince: What have being the achievements that you’ve chalked as an organisation?

Emmanuel: Since 2008, we've helped about 51 girls so far, who have

come in contact with us through our programs. All of them are now

ambassadors of ABAN in their communities, some of them after their

completion we got them employment, and some of these are girls we took

from the streets are now able to take their own kids to school

themselves. They get regular employment plus when you affect the

persons mind and after two years which we have tackled their attitude

which we feel is mostly the problem our hope is that we are not only

ending up the cycle of poverty with the girls but also ending the

cycle of poverty with their kids who would otherwise have continue on

the street and become the second generation street kids. In terms of

physical achievements, now ABAN is a fully fledged registered NGO in

Ghana and the US, we have acquired about six acres of land which we

intend to build an ABAN village on; we are looking at a multi-purpose

facility that would have dormitories, sports complex, and clinic for

the girls. We are doing well and gathering more momentum.

Prince: What are some of the feedbacks you get from beneficiaries and

the communities?

Emmanuel: It takes me to the point when I was talking about dealing

with uneducated persons so we've got mystery actions. The thoughts are

that as an NGO, you have a lot of money so we are just expected to

freely give the money to people who are poor and needy. They have a

possessive mentality, people do not feel they need to do something to

earn money; they think and feel that you owe it to help them so it’s

being difficult. On a positive note, we still have a lot of support

from community leaders; the Aburihene is one of our very good patrons

in the community. We've met with the DCE and others in political

authority, so the community response is good. The girls parents

themselves are sometimes supportive and the girls themselves obviously

will be the best ambassadors of what help they’ve got from us. It’s

being mixed, it is an NGO work, you helping people, and you expect

that it is excellent but I will be lying if I tell you the reaction we

get is excellent. We do give the help, it will take time for people to

realise the impact we've had on them.

Prince: What has being the biggest failure that ABAN has encountered?

Emmanuel: That’s a good question. I think for every girl that leaves

the program back to the street is a big failure for us. Because the

idea now is of going to recruit people even not from the street but

from homes. If a girl comes to us and after two years she goes back to

square one. That's a big failure for us, there is a lot of money that

goes into their rehabilitations and you finish putting all these

monies into the girls and committing time and effort to try and help

people and they go back to square one, that’s a big failure and we've

had a couple of cases like that. Sometimes the people just decide they

prefer to go back to the street where they are from.

Prince: Do you believe Africa can be rebuilt?

Emmanuel: I definitely think so. We've gotten enough human resource

here to turn things around. What we are doing is a miniature level

development but we just need a replica of stuff that we do all across

the continent. Not only in charity but developmental work and

attacking the real issues that affect the continent. But our future

depends on us citizens and attitudes for the most part. I think we

have it all, everyone knows Africa is the richest continent and we

have all the stuffs that will make us develop, its all about our

attitude. Once we start affecting the people attitudes and adapting

the correct strategies, I think there is hope for the continent.

Prince: In the near future what are some of the contributions we are

going to see ABAN add to the rebuilding of Africa?

Emmanuel: In Ghana where we are located, we will start with Aburi, a

small town where we are located, and what we are doing is to try and

scale our programs and have the capacity of recruiting more girls at a

time and not only are we going to tackle our direct beneficiaries but

now we are going to try and affect indirect beneficiaries as well.

Example is opening help centres that would provide support for poor

persons living in the community at subsidized rates, opening schools:

we cant have too much of education, there cannot be enough schools in

Africa and definitely in Ghana where about 20% of the population is

said to be uneducated. So more schools, more health facilities,

building of roads and etc, we leave that to government but in our own

small way we feel if we sort of help with this amenities then we would

be moving forward in the right direction.

Prince: Personally, what other things are we seeing you do?

Emmanuel: I mentioned that young people leaves school and go into

mainstream work and then do the NGOs afterwards and I have taken the

other route, so haven’t done charity for sometime now what lies in my

future, I would look into upgrading myself a bit, I am talking about

educating other people but you have to educate yourself too, upgrading

my educational qualification, I have a bachelors degree, I am looking

forward for my Masters, try our For-Profit work. These days,

For-Profit work can actually help in doing Not-For-Profit work. A lot

of companies now have Corporate Social Responsibilities (CSR) and they

intend to help pressing issues in society, so I am looking to if

possible try my hands on For-Profit works as well and in so doing

raise enough money to continue to help people who need some form of

support and are now able to fully appreciate what people need, because

I’ve had experience dealing with them directly

Prince: Who are the people who mentor and inspire you?

Emmanuel: My role models are my parents, they are very hardworking

people from very little means they gave us a very good life: my dad

was a Taxi driver growing, my mum a nurse but we went to the best

schools in any place we found ourselves and they gave us the basic

comfort of life. They realise the essence of education and all their

hard earnings, they pumped into our education forfeiting the norm

which is to own a house and own a car, our education was their

priority, made sure we went to the universities and so I cherish that

gift that they gave me. My dad is a very humble man, a very good

friend and my mentor at the same time. If you take it beyond my

parents, as a Ghanaian, the one person that I feel had a lot going for

Ghana was Dr. Kwame Nkrumah , the man was a visionary and if you take

a look at the stuffs he was doing back then even in today’s context,

you will appreciate what a gem we let go. Of course I didn’t get to

meet him but history books brought me closer to him but he definitely

got my attention.

Prince: What do you see the world recognising for?

Emmanuel: They would recognise me for my dedication and commitment to

working even in not so favourable conditions. Forbes and co, I think

they recognise people in terms of riches, so I don’t think I make that

line at all.

Prince: Do you have acknowledgements for some special people that have

pushed you to this stage?

Emmanuel: For the work that we do, we have Vodafone Ghana and most of

our supports come from the US but we say thanks to everybody who helps

us. Personally I want to say thank you to the professor in whose class

the NGO started, Dr. Justice Bawule of the University of Ghana

Business School, to friends and families who have being supportive and

anybody who has helped Aban or Me in any special way, I say thank you.

Prince: What are your final words to young people to who are also

aspiring to do what you are doing today?

Emmanuel: Don’t despair, don’t be anxious. At some point at the

university of Ghana, in my third year, I was getting anxious, few

friends were beginning to fare well, they were travelling abroad,

getting good jobs, and there was no prospect for me, so I was getting

anxious, I was wondering, what’s gonna happen now, I am graduating,

parents have poured money into my education and the anxiety was

turning into panic attack and I know what it feels like for people to

be jobless, not being bale to do something for yourself and feel like

a waste. Its not a good feeling, so for anybody in that situation, I

will say to that person, do not despair, it’s just about time and

pressure, do the right things and in any moment you can do something

positive for yourself so look for that positive and wait for that

moment and when that moment comes make sure you take it.

Thank You

Akpah Prince

akpahprince@ymail.com