20 Students from Bakkie University on visit

Daily Graphic, Pg 11, Friday, January 29/10
Story Rebecca Quaicoe-Duho

TWENTY post-graduate students from the Bakkie Graduate University (BGU), Seattle, in the United States of America (USA) are in the country to understudy how the work of government and non-governmental agencies impact on the lives of the deprived.
The students who are being hosted by the Ghana Christian University College (GCUC) are made up of businessmen, lawyers, social workers and industrialists whose aim is to learn at first-hand some success stories of urban ministry which is made up of government and non-governmental organisations.
The Director of the GCUC, Dr Manuel Budu Adjei said the students who were nationals from various countries including Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Niger, Tanzania, China and the USA were the second to visit the country as part of a yearly programme which the two universities were embarking on.
The GCUC is an accredited university college which was founded in 1966 and runs two major programmes in the areas of theology and community development.
The BGU on the other hand is a member of the Transnational Association of Christian Colleges and Schools (TRACS) having been awarded Reaffirmed Status as Category III and IV Institutions by the TRACS Accreditation Commission in 2005.
It seeks to strengthen leaders who mobilise resources for vulnerable people by means of contextual, Christian-based education innovatively delivered throughout the urban world.
As part of their programme, the group visited financial institutions, churches and business organisations, as well as slums in Accra to explore ways of transferring some of the positive impacts of the work of urban ministry on the marginalised in society.
According to Dr Adjei the objective of the visit was for the students to learn at first hand what the urban ministry was doing to reach out to the marginalised in society.
He said the two universities were also exploring ways of engaging in exchange programmes where students from the GCUC would also visit the BGU to learn good practices of the BGU.
The Director of Institutional Advancement, GCUC, Dr Johnson Asibuo said the visit would benefit the GCUC and the nation as a whole as most of the students who were business owners and industrialists would explore ways of coming to do business in the country in the near future.
On completion of their educational programme, he said the students would come out with dissertations which would enable people in other parts of the world to read about Accra.
The Registrar and Director of Academic Affairs of the BGU, Dr Judy Melton noted that the visit would help the students to be better equipped in their urban ministry to serve their communities better.
And also to be transformational leaders in their lives, ministry and community to become agents of change to better the lot of the deprived in urban societies.