THE LISA-GH ELECTIONS SEASON

The Liberian Students Association in Ghana  (LISA-GH) is 20 years old and still hundreds of Liberian students across Ghana have not even heard  anything about our association. For 20 good years now Liberian students in Ghana have been  acquiring knowledge and skills from various  learning institutions without seeing the need to synergize our efforts and resources for the sake of national development. As Liberian students in Ghana, what meaningful project(s) have we got to show as an  evidence of our commitment and  preparedness to contribute to the on-going  reconstruction and development process of our nation, Liberia? In fact, now that the cessation clause has started  putting an end to our Buduburam  experience and most of the Liberian refugees who have opted to stay in Ghana are   going to stay in the name of education, it is imperative that LISA-GH choose the right and best leadership team that can manage the Liberian students’ affairs in Ghana. Before casting our ballots, let’s reflect on these crucial issues.

Don’t forget the fact that we have all the requisite knowledge, skills, resources and the membership strength to make LISA-GH an outstanding and vibrant association, but we need a system that will direct our efforts… How do we get such a system? That system can only be initiated by a good team of  innovative and cooperative leadership.

The current LISA-GH administration has done  so well in less time and their efforts have provided enough lessons to inspire us on what to do and what not to do.

Now the opportunity (elections) is here again for us to choose the leaders that can direct the progress of our association. Who can we trust to lead LISA-GH at this crucial moment? His name is simple…Emmanuel Cisco.

You might know Cisco personally but you      actually deserve to know Cisco’s vision and    objectives for LISA-GH, what major  challenges he’s identified with the association and how he plans to solve them as well as his background in black and white.

VISION:

To strategically integrate more Liberian students from various institutions across Ghana for active participation in the progressive expansion of LISA-GH.

OBJECTIVES:

Before the end of the 2012/2013 academic year, with a cooperative team, Cisco seeks to:

· Improve the information system of LISA-GH

· Raise more funds for the association’s project(s)

· Expand the LISA-GH membership base

· Advocate for and seek the welfare of all Liberian students in Ghana

· Promote unity and cooperation among all Liberian students in Ghana

· Coordinate effectively and efficiently all programs and activities of LISA-GH

· Ensure LISA-GH’s partnership with more student organizations within and outside Ghana to create more opportunities

· Continuously motivate the leadership team to achieve remarkable results

 CHALLENGES:

Challenges are necessary ingredients for every worthwhile endeavor. Like any other organization, LISA-GH has got her fair share of significant challenges, but   “the significant challenges we face today cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.” There’s a tall list of challenges but LISA-GH’s major challenges observed and noted so far include:

· Raising funds to implement programs or projects: With all the finest business brains LISA-GH has, fund-raising is still almost an impossible task. With all the calibre of members that LISA-GH has, Gh¢ 5 per  semester due payment is still a serious problem to reckon with. The way forward? Long-term strategic planning with commitment and a system that will  motivate members to pay their dues combined with an appropriate measure of collecting the dues from      members across the country. This is one reason why we also need to partner with other organizations.

· Meeting attendance: LISA-GH congress especially, for a long time now, has always been poorly         attended. The excuses we get from members who stay away from meetings include: busy academic      schedule, poor meeting conduct, meeting venue, etc. The fact is we cannot have all Liberians students to attend congress at one place at a particular date. But if we can expand our membership base and  probably change our meeting venue and strictly observe our meeting rules we as the current administration has started, we can have huge attendance at  Congress.

· Females’ involvement in LISA-GH activities: For a very long time now, the ladies have gone far away from LISA-GH activities. This is even evident in our       elections; the female do not attempt vying for any position during elections. This attitude has raised serious concerns about the gender-equality message we preach all the time. But we can still discover the true cause of the ladies’ attitude towards our association and continue encouraging them to get fully involved in running LISA-GH.

 · Discrimination against some members: Some members abuse their privilege of  attending top class universities by trying to look down on the less privileged students in other low class institutions. This attitude has caused some Liberian students to stay away from LISA-GH meetings and other activities. Way forward? We can create a more conducive social environment that will bring together all members of the            association  irrespective of their institution or course of   studies by  treating everyone equal.

CANDIDATE PROFILE

It has been said that, “Nature is usually  generous and bountiful, but when it comes to the human   species it dispenses the best specimen with great parsimony. Thus fortunate communities may get one great man once in every generation, or even in century or not at all.” Thank God our generation is blessed to have such a multi-talented and a   sweet-spirited leader, Emmanuel Zeeco Cisco.

In LISA-GH, we believe in “championing academic excellence for national development.” Emmanuel Cisco, one of the clearest symbols of  academic excellence, first entered kindergarten (ABC class) in 1994 and   completed high school in 2003 with consistent ‘double promotions’. Cisco, a DAFI scholar, is currently a final year Economics student at Ghana Institute of Management and   Public  Administration (GIMPA). All to the glory of God, throughout his academic journey, from Harbel Kindergarten to Greenhill College (GIMPA) Cisco, amazingly, is always the first on the list of excellent academic        performance in every class he has ever sat.

 He is one of the most popular and well respected Liberian students at GIMPA especially for his role in tutoring a large number of his GIMPA colleagues (including bankers, CEOs, Managers, Journalists, civil servants, etc.) offering various programs at various levels. 

Nontheless, Cisco strongly believes that academic performance alone cannot qualify a person for leadership. For some years now, he has diligently committed himself to doing everything humanly and heavenly possible to inspire hope and courage in the young people of this generation to discover and passionately pursue their purpose in life. This commitment has provided him with the requisite experience and skills in working with people. Besides being the co-founder of one of the most vibrant youth organizations in Buduburam, Youth Empowerment for Progress (YEP), he has always been an active player on the management and leadership teams of many youth groups, projects and programs both in Buduburam and Accra, Ghana. He’s an entrepreneur, a writer and motivational speaker.