REUNION 2020
(Virtual)
Speech by NAA President - Nicholas Opoku
Many thanks Yaw.
Mr. Kissiedu, President of Nifa Old Students Associatoon, Nana Tiaah Ampem Darko, ladies and gentlemen, what an amazing vibe and a great turn out! And how fantastic it is to be able to put faces to so many names that are mostly familiar to us in our imagination through social media.
I would like to thank you all for making time for this virtual reunion of former students of our beloved Nifa. In fact, we are like a family so we might as well call this a family reunion. Indeed, some of you have family and friends here today. I hope you all feel very welcome.
I’m sure we would have loved to meet face to face, as we did last year. But with the shadow of COVID-19 hanging over the world, we must be grateful to God for making it possible to meet remotely.
The truth is that there are many here today who, for various reasons, will not have been able to travel to the US for a face-to-face reunion. So this is a wonderful opportunity for us all.
We’ve come a long way as an alumni group. There was a time during our humble beginnings in 2016 when we struggled to find our feet. Some even doubted we would survive in our second year.
Today—and nearly five years on—we are a strong, united and forward looking organisation focused on our single mission to make Nifa Senior High School a better place for learning and teaching.
If you’re here today, went to Nifa Senior High School or its predecessor, Nifa Secondary School, are living outside of Ghana, and currently not a member, please consider joining us.
The future of NAA is bright and the more members we have, the less work it will be for each one of us and the more we can do to achieve our aim and objectives. “Mpanyinfo se, se baanu so a enmia”.
As the members of NAA know, earlier in the year we embarked on a campaign to raise funds to refurbish a girls’ dormitory at Nifa. This is our second project for the school.
The fundraising got off to a very good start until COVID-19 arrived. As the crisis evolved, the Executive decided that the atmosphere was not right to pursue members to honour their obligations.
Even so, a good number of you have continued to show your tireless commitment to our cause by making your contributions without being asked. Thank you so much for your dedication to NAA.
I know this is a stressful time for many of our members. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has been felt on different levels: physically, mentally, emotionally and financially.
Some of you have lost friends and loved ones to the virus. Some of you work at the coalface of the pandemic response: in hospitals, in aged care services and in government operations. Others work in sectors and industries that have been bit hard by the crisis. These include the hospitality, transport, tourism and entertainment industries.
If you work in any of these industries or in the health sector, I urge you to take heart. All will be well. I pray every day for God’s protection and support for all our members through these difficult times.
I know some of you are eager to see us press ahead with the fundraising so we can do the project. The executive will continue to monitor the situation and advise members on how we move forward, but if you are able to pay your contribution and you haven’t paid it yet, I encourage you to do so.
Meanwhile, I’ve put together a committee of five members—myself included—looking at how we can attract funding from external sources. I thank Ben Nyadu, Bentex, for reviving this long-held vision of mine.
I know we all want the fun to continue, so without further ado, let me wrap up by thanking the Reunion Committee for this wonderful initiative in the face of uncertainties around the world. In times like this, it is important we take a break from the depressing events happening all around us and reach out to each other. This is what this virtual reunion is about.
Thank you and may God bless you all. And now may I take the opportunity to invite Mr. Kissiedu to speak to the audience.
2018 Annual Report Launch - Kofi Ansah
Many thanks Kwadjo. Hello everyone. It’s great to see you all this morning.
Yes you heard me right. It’s 7 am Sunday 19 July here in my village in the Australian bush capital. We’re in the middle of winter so it’s chilly, but it wasn’t too bad overnight: just -1°C or about 30°F.
But I can tell you I had to drag myself out of bed, so pardon me if I sound a bit croaky. The North Americans, next time it’s your turn: 6 am sharp in Canada and the US.
Anyway, thank you for the opportunity to say a few words about an important aspect of the work Helena Adu and I do as secretaries. And that is, NAA’s annual reports. Helena, where are you?
When we started Nisec Alumni Abroad, we vowed to do everything by the book. Doing everything by the book does not mean being book-long. It means doing what all successful organisations do.
This includes having laid-down rules, being registered as a lawful charity organisation, having transparent processes, and being democratic in our decision making by giving all members a voice.
That’s why one of the first things we did when we came together in 2016 was to develop the NAA constitution, which is the set of basic rules and principles that guide us in how we operate.
One thing the constitution requires us to do is to produce an annual report, a detailed account of our activities and finances. As the name suggests, we need to produce this report for each year.
The annual report is the story of our life as an alumni charity organization and it is very important. It’s our message to the world that we are serious about what we do and we have nothing to hide.
It’s our message to our members and other former students of Nifa who might want to join us. It’s our message to governments and stakeholders such as the Nifa headmaster, teachers and NOSA. More important, it’s our message to individuals and organisations that might want to help us.
Let me give you one example. Earlier, the President said he had put together an External Funding Committee. A member of that committee, Ben Nyadu, did some research and found that to secure external funding to support our projects, some of the things we need to show are our annual reports.
This is because nobody is going to give us a lot of money without checking whether we are fake, genuine or serious. And one way to check this is to scrutinise our annual reports.
Now, compiling an annual report is not an easy task at the best of times. And when you have to do it voluntarily and in your spare time, it becomes even much more difficult. That’s why there are delays.
The work involves reading minutes of the executive’s meetings and every post on our main platform and the executive platform for the whole year, analysing them and creating a report out of them.
So far, we’ve delivered annual reports for 2016 and 2017. That means 2018 and 2019 remain to be done, but I’m glad that today we can cross out 2018 from our to-do list, although it is one year late.
Ladies and gentlemen, it’s my great pleasure to release the 2018 NAA Annual Report. The report highlights our achievements in 2018 and a number of interesting things we did during that year.
The report is available on the NAA website and I encourage you all to go there and read it. You might be surprised to find in the report something you said that you don’t even remember you said it.
This annual report will be a good read particularly for those of you who were not with us in 2018, and a good reminder for the rest of us about the fun we all had and the challenges we had to overcome.
I would like to thank my secretarial partner Helena Adu—and all the other members of the executive for their input to the development of the report.
But more important, I would like to thank all our members. Without your participation in the activities we do on our platforms, there will be nothing to talk about in the annual reports.
So thank you and may God bless you!
Dance clips
Memories of