Richmond Diplomatic Society host the Ghanaian High Commissioner for 'Africa Today' event

06/04/2011

One of the Richmond Diplomatic society’s biggest events yet was held last week on Friday 1st April. The event, ‘Africa Today’ welcomed the High Commissioner, Professor Kwaku Danso-Boafo, the Ghanaian Ambassador to United Kingdom and Ireland to the Richmond Hill Campus.

Also on the panel was the Chancellor of Richmond University Sir Cyril Taylor and it’s President, Dr Ian Newbould. As usual Saed Sarsur the president of the Diplomatic Society was by their side.

The event began with the High Commissioner giving a 40-minute introduction to Ghana and its position within Africa. Areas such as independence and progression were at the centre of the introduction. What followed was an extremely fruitful question and answer session with questions coming from both the audience and panel. The audience, consisting of many students could sense the extensive knowledge and passion possessed by the High Commissioner.

Topics of discussion were the role of Ghana in a possible ‘united Africa’, possibility of internships and also the issues of outside intervention in African politics. Development economics played a key role in much of the discussion, which had a particular poignancy to the group of Ghanaian students in the audience.

After the talk members of the audience got a chance to talk to the High Commissioner one on one. In addition a key charity of Richmond, the Richmond International Action Network Program (RIAN) established a connection the Ghanaian embassy. Overall the event was a universal success and a great thanks goes out to all those who featured on the panel.

Dr Newbould, the President of Richmond University, opened the event with a warm welcome speech to His Excellency Professor Kwaku Danso-Boafo as well as a brief introduction on the High Commissioner’s interesting career so far.

Sir Cyril Taylor, the founder of Richmond University also welcomed the High Commissioner and mentioned the importance of cooperation in order to help Africa and its people. Sir Cyril mentioned some of the issues which Africa is suffering from, and stated that Richmond University and its student body, the Richmond Diplomatic Society will continue to provide both cooperation and support in order to see as much progress as possible.

Saed Sarsur, President of RDS sys: “It is a privilege to host the High Commissioner Professor Kwaku Danso-Boafo, and it is a great honor to host such a great individual such as our founder Sir Cyril Taylor and as well as our President Dr. Ian Newbould. Africa is a topic which is very important to us indeed, and we are here to send a clear message to the international community that Richmond University, its founder, faculty, staff and students are active on almost all levels in order to help Africa and its people which we share both sympathy and interests. We have many projects which our University is directly promoting in order to help Africa. Whilst some are simply talking, we are actually acting, and we believe that education is the best frame of development, and I hope to cooperate with His Excellency in order to promote shared ideas and projects.”

Thanks go to Josh Nedeljkovic, spokesman for the Diplomatic Society, who hosted the event.

Link to this page: http://www.richmond.ac.uk/n/1122.aspx