James Owusu-Ansah, is the Director, Area Church Communications at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in this interview with Daily Trust, he spoke on why marriages are important to forestall ills and vices in the society.
What made you come up with this conference?
Five years ago, our leaders observed that in Africa, especially in West Africa, families are trying to make ends meet but there are so many challenges confronting them and as a church, we are key stakeholder in nation building, so the leaders felt starting a conversation that would generate interest across the divide by coming together and think about ways to improve livelihood for families will be an important thing. As leaders of the church, they believe that the family is the basic unit of the society, therefore, if families are well to do, by default, societies will be well also.
What has been the impact since its launch?
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It has been amazing, the concept of the Strengthening Family Conference is where we meet to discuss families and how we can help in terms of conversation, policy framework for government institutions. What we do is that we issue a communique at the end of every conference on the takeaways and highlights including the call to action on what people should take to their various countries to implement in their community. So, what we do is that we also follow up on projects. For example, two years ago, we had someone from Liberia, coming to learn how to make facemask when the covid was in its very peak, the woman engaged community members and they sold the masks to improve their community. Also, someone from Serbia Leone, learn about a server that can be used to connect up to 20 computers off-grid, without and when she took it back home, the government taught it wise to scale it up, so they are now using it in encouragement of people in places where there is no internet, with this, you can have content on it for people to learn.
We have what we call gatherings, where people come in to learn employable skills like hairdressing, cake making, dress making among others. All these things came out from these conferences and it has been very impactful. Also in Lagos, there is one of our guests who spoke at last year’s conference in Ghana, she saw the need to make an impact in the lives of poor kids, so whatever she took away from the conference, she’s now implementing it and we have a video of it. What we do now is if you go to our website, we have shared impact videos of the projects that people have done and still do.
Apart from that, we are also, year-in-year-out achieving something that ordinarily seems like an impossibility, for instance, bringing Muslim, Christian and traditional leaders together and discuss issues confronting humanity and families as well as bringing up sustainable solutions to address these challenges. We feel that apart from all these numerous projects that people have done and are still doing to make impact in communities, the one thing that has stood out is the platform and commonality that we share no matter where we belong because we believe that no matter our differences, there is a common denominator which makes us all one as a family.
What is the most challenging thing you have discovered as a threat to the nucleus of the family?
The conference we had last two years, its theme was ‘Strengthening the Rising Generation,’ we have seen so many youths, by our estimation, feel hopeless and visionless, but getting closer to them, you feel that they have vision but the support system and encouragement is lacking. So, as the leaders of the church thought that the family unit is core in the society and once father and mother agree together to help kids, then they will have the necessary foundation to make the right choices and progress in life. It is shown that most kids that make wrong choices come from broken homes. The kids do not feel love growing up or think they are good enough and have never been told that they can make it. All these can be changed when the basic unit of the society, which is the family is well to do, healthy physically, physiologically, emotionally and that in itself has positive effects on kids growing up.
So, for society to experience love, it must come from families: kids must experience it, mothers must experience it, fathers must experience it. All these happen within the boundaries of the family, we can’t give what we do not have, so if the home is not a welcoming place and not receptive to its people, the society can’t get it right.
There is always the debate in which previous generations blame the succeeding one for not conforming with the norms and morals of the society, how can we stop this?
There is a song, ‘The Living years,’ by Paul Carrack, in the song, there is a line which says that “every generation blames the one before for all frustration that comes competing at their door.” This is exactly why the conference is important, for instance, last year, we have an expert that talked about the use of technology like computers and phones, most parents get them for kids to while away time, they feel kids can be occupied by the gadgets so they can have time to do what they want to do, either work or do something else. But through the conversations and submissions learned in the conference, it helped us to know how we can plan to help kids understand why they need to use technology and how long they can use it by sharing their time with them and help them make right decisions, we understand that technology is not an end itself but a means to an end, so rightly using it will help someone make the right decision and progress.
Society today, when it comes to vices, is degenerating because the leadership is not there to offer the needed motivation and encouragement for people to make the right decisions. We are all fighting for money, that is why we are having this conference. So, some of the people we are assembling to talk will address issues like this because they are experts and have seen it all. At the end of their submissions, there will be a call to action on how best to address this. For example, last year, we set the panel for the rising generation, we did not include any expert, then we set a separate panel for the expert. So, the rising generation came to talk about their own challenges and how they can solve it because oftentimes, leaders seem to impose ideas on succeeding generations thinking that they know nothing but they know something, thus, there is an issue of contrast in ideas. So how do we create the platform to bridge ideas, this conference offers a platform for that where kids can air their ideas and submissions while taking cognizance to the way they look at things. Also, we will look at how leaders and parents can also air their submission, ideas and objectives. We will marry the ideas to create a synergy that will result in sustainable solutions to the challenges that confront the generation.
As such, it is not about the previous generation being better than the succeeding generation but it is about finding the right moment, the balance and approach to address issues, where everyone, both the older generation, the succeeding generation or rising generation, are invited to the table, to discuss the way out.
Why did you choose Nigeria to host this conference?
We feel Nigeria needs it, I think all around the globe, we all need a conference like this. But it came by a way of inspiration to our leaders. When we were done with last year’s conference, they said we need to go to Nigeria to move the conference round. The first four conferences were all held in Accra, Ghana, which houses the church’s headquarters. So, by inspiration, our leaders say we need to move it around and the first place we go should be in Abuja.
Nigeria is a key player in the continent of Africa and if it speaks, it carries more weight. The spotlight is going to be on Abuja so whatever highlight and take away occur, it will have the needed impact. So, Nigeria is a key driver in this movement because we know how big Nigeria is.
What will be your words to marriages facing turbulent times?
I want to invite them to the conference. Let us go to God with our words, he knows our challenges and answers to them. So, through his conference, God’s kindness and generosity will speak through the expert who are his children, no matter our labels, we are sons and daughters of our heavenly father, so this conference is going to provide to married couples and kids the needed suggestions to apply the dosage needed to work miracles through the messages. Just make time and be at the conference, above all we want to welcome people with open hands that we are all brothers and sisters.
