Please sponsor me.
I'm walking to keep
Africa Alive!
Sponsor Mike (Kwamena) Ayina
Welcome, or as we say in Ghana, Akwaaba!
Those of you who know me know that I’m happiest spending any spare time I can get working on some home improvement project. Kicking back with a cool bottle of suds with some golden oldies or smooth jazz in the background is also right up there on my list of how to unwind after a hard day’s work.
So, why am I about to embark on a strenuous training program to go walk a half-marathon in a hot & humid climate on the other side of the world? Several reasons. I recently took my son for his first visit to my homeland of Ghana. My mother has been seriously ill and bedridden for some time, and the visit was necessary.
Despite my mother’s condition, it was a joyful “homecoming” for me, but I was also shocked and disturbed to come face-to-face once again with the needless tragedies that are played out everyday in Ghana and all over Africa in terms of poverty, unsanitary living conditions and high mortality rates from largely preventable diseases. Much of the information and resources readily available to me, my son and his peers in the U.S. are totally out of reach of our counterparts in Africa.
The life expectancy in Ghana is 58 years—exactly the age that I am now. Makes one think, reflect & reconsider. I am encouraged to know that I can do something to help my brothers and sisters half a world away to improve their lives and their health. In some ways, I hope I am also helping to ease my mother’s suffering as her generous spirit would want others to avoid her struggles with chronic pain and disability.
Please join or support me in this effort. The beer at the finish line will be on me!
