Born in Kalpohene, Tamale, in the Northern Region of Ghana a little before the 90's, my world view as a child was perhaps no different from that of my peers elsewhere. With my mum as a teacher and my dad a social worker, we lived a simple but happy life--and I quickly learned to be content with the opportunities life sent my way. I attended a local public school close to home, and just as I had started to form my niche of friends, my family had to make a very unexpected resettlement to Accra. This was due to a bloody conflict which broke out in most of the Northern Region in the mid-nineties.

In the nation's capital, I begun second grade at Adenta Community School (ACS), a local elementary school which opened the same year we moved to our new home in Adenta. In several ways, I felt a bit alien at school partly because of the cultural changes I had to make living in my new southern community, but perhaps more signficantly because I had been suddenly and completely cut-off from all my friends in Tamale. However it wasn't long before I started speaking Twi and Ga like most of my new schoolmates, and I eventually settled well in school. Like most public schools in Ghana, we had our fair share of very limited educational resources and sometimes no teachers for certain classes. It almost seemed there was already an upper-bound to what one could could expect from life. My only consolation was the fact that my school had a relatively new building, and was only a 15-minute walk from my home. But for a few dedicated teachers who spurred me on, perhaps that consolation may have been my upper-bound. For instance, I will forever remain indebted to Ms. Christine Awudi, who willingly combined my fourth grade class with her fifth grade class for close to a year when our regular teacher fell seriously ill and showed no signs of recuperating before the end of the academic year. With no additional remuneration or special recognition as incentive, Ms. Awudi was surely part of only a few teachers in the public school system who could manage such sacrifice and selflessness. After eight years of hardwork and many blessings, I graduated as the top student from ACS and gained admission to Presbyterian Boys' Secondary School (PRESEC).

Although a public boarding secondary school originally started by the Presbyerian Church of Ghana in 1938, PRESEC became renowned for its academic excellence. It often only admitted the best applicants (equivalent of 9th grade graduates) from top Ghanaian junior secondary schools (JSS)--which without surprise were mostly private and well-resourced. Here too, I initially felt a bit alienated; I was only one of a few graduates from public JSS’s (or "syto" as these were derogatively called) in a school of over 2000 students. Fortunately, in the year I enrolled, five other students from ACS also gained admission to PRESEC--perhaps the highest number in the schools' history even till date. In several ways, PRESEC was similar to Adenta Community School--with worn-out infrastructure, very old "windowless" classroom buildings and several teachers, who like their counterparts in several other public secondary schools, had few additional incentives to spur them as they went about their chosen careers.

Presec's contestants in the 2006 national quiz competition.

However, PRESEC was also different from Adenta Community School. In spite of the infrastructural, logistical and sometimes personnel challenges that were commonplace, PRESEC still stood out, and I was initially puzzled by this. I soon discovered that the source of PRESEC's achievements was not to be found in its classrooms, laboratories, or libraries--for these were at best average relative to those of other schools--but rather in an overwhelming spirit of can-do among students, teachers and staff alike. In the debates, quizzes and sports events that PRESEC took part in, there was almost an unwritten expectation or belief that the school was to be best. Of course, PRESEC was not always first in these events, as there were other great public secondary schools, but this belief seemed to give us an extra impetus. Success in these events meant that an even more expectant and motivated group of JSS graduates sought enrollment at the school come the next admission cycle. Perhaps, the highlight of my secondary school educational experience was participation in the annual National Science and Math Quiz. Before the 2006 edition of the competition, PRESEC, as well as four other top schools, was a two-time winner of the competition, and whichever school won it for a third-time got to permanently keep the competition trophy. I was both

honored and yet overwhelmed to be one of three students chosen to represent my school in my final year.

During our preparations, the inordinate encouragement from students and teachers only worsened the burden of shouldering a school's expectations. However, this also made me realize, perhaps for the first time, that I was part of a vision and a story greater than myself. Our team went on to win the competition trophy for keeps that year, and exciting as that was, I was more importantly moved by how much I could personally contribute to the joy of thousands of people.

Even today, as a junior at Harvard College, that lesson has not been lost on me. I have found that I am most moved by activities that bring relief and joy to others. Today I'll like to encourage everyone, particularly Africans, to look beyond themselves; to become part of a story that is greater than the individual; to participate in a story that can help tackle the challenges that confront Africa and move the continent towards the greatness that it's capable of.

God bless mother Africa!

If this personal story has encouraged you, and it's in your means, then I'd like to ask that you consider donating bednets for just $5 each to help prevent Malaria in Africa. This is part of a project that a few friends and I are currently working on in Akotokyir, a village near Cape Coast, Ghana. Find out more at http://www.ahotopartnership.org/

Timothy W. Kotin