2006
The IIHFD: The President’s Annual Report—2006
Like the other years, the year 2006 has also come to an end. In what follows is a description of our main activities throughout the year. I also include a letter I will send out to every member regarding our plans to set up the Human Factor Leadership Academy (HFLA) at Akatsi in the Volta Region of Ghana.
Like the years preceding this one, our primary emphasis has been on the publication of our scholarly journal, Review of Human Factor Studies. We continue to be successful in the publication of the journal.
At the close of 2005 and beginning of 2006, we had made the decision to commission the HFLA in July 2006. We made good on this plan and inaugurated the HFLA on July 2006 at Akatsi in the Volta region of Ghana. At the inauguration of the Academy, we rented an excellent facility and equipped it with books, three laptop computers, and two television sets. The library was made available to the children, youth, and adults alike. We employed Ms. Mercy Tagbor to run the library.
On November 18, 2006, we shipped a container full of over fifteen thousand books and twenty-four computers from San Diego, California (USA) to the Port of Tema in Ghana. We received three thousand five hundred from Mr. Jason Jenkins toward the shipping cost. In addition to this amount, we also received one thousand five hundred dollars from Mr. Randy Ataide toward the shipping costs and harbor fees.
Arguing from these perspectives, we have been successful in our vision and plans for 2006. This success was made possible because a few of our members made financial contributions far and above their annual membership. These funds made it possible for us to get the HFLA commissioned in July 2006. As most of you would remember, I sent out a fund raising letter to every member of the IIHFD on February 13, 2006. The contents of this letter are as follow:
February 13, 2006
Dear Colleague:
Giving a Gift of Honest and Compassionate Leadership to Africa
Africans have searched diligently for ways to improve their quality of life. Despite the intensity of their efforts, social, economic, political, and educational conditions across the continent grow from bad to worse. We in North America feel compassion for their efforts and the struggle. This failure raises the following key questions:
Why are Africans finding it too difficult to achieve social, economic, political, and educational progress they so much need?
What must Africans and their global helpers do to reverse the vicious cycle of social, economic, political, and educational underdevelopment and poverty?
These questions demand answers to Africa’s perennial problems. To find the answers to these questions, it is imperative to perceive that no social, economic, political, and educational policies can achieve their intended objectives if the African environment and culture are continuously deprived of positive human factor qualities.
Life in Africa becomes a vicious cycle: the difficulty of merely living precludes the development of leadership characteristics that cultivate economic growth. Specifically, these human factor qualities include honesty, trust, integrity, self motivation, compassion, a sense of justice and equality for all guided by a faith that is God-fearing. Human factor qualities include personality characteristics that enable social, economic, political, and educational institutions to function, and to remain functional over time (See Adjibolosoo, 1995).
Achieving development in Africa, of a society in which the vicious cycle breaks down, is something in which you and I can be a part. The Human Factor Leadership Academy (HFLA) will develop citizens that are cultivated in leadership skills that contribute to a fruitful and abundant society. This caliber of people must be steeped in the human factor qualities of: resilience; commitment to principle-centered living; a pioneering, and an entrepreneurial spirit. These people will be found in the young people of Africa.
The vision of the human factor in leadership and development will be concentrated on the youth. The youth of Africa will bring about lasting and significant changes in Africa of tomorrow. Education programs aimed at improving the future of post-colonial African society must assist the youth to hone their skills, enhance their talents, and develop positive human factor qualities.
Effecting development-propelling changes in post-colonial African society in the future depends on what we do collectively today. We have been given the ability to effect change in a positive way to those around us. Actions taken today will impact the future of the youth of Africa.
It is the desire of African leaders, and of people like you who see the vision, to change the future of Africa for the better. This vision leads us to plan for the establishment of the HFLA at Akatsi, a small town in the Volta Region of Ghana.
To get this noble project off the ground, we need your financial and prayer support. The preliminary budget for the commencement of the HFLA is twenty-six thousand four hundred forty dollars ($26, 440.00). See the itemized budget in the table below. Please pray about how the Lord might use you to make this vision a reality; giving a gift of honest and compassionate leadership to Africa . Please consider your giving soon , to get the Human Factor Academy program started in July 2006.
Your help will be critcal in buliding a stronger youth in Africa. Please review our financials needs today, to see where your contribution might benefit the lives of these future citizens.
The International Institute for Human Factor Development (USA) Incorporated is an officially registered 501(c)(3) charitable organization. All donations will be tax-receipted for income tax purposes.
Yours Sincerely,
Senyo Adjibolosoo, PhD
Professor of Economics
Fermanian School of Business
Point Loma Nazarene University
San Diego, CA
President, IIHFD
