Chinese students urged Africa to fight media negativity

Hain (U/W), July 20, GNA - Visiting university students from China have appealed to Africans to fight media negativity for the progress and growth of the continent.

They said unless that was done, the continent's development and economic prosperity would be delayed and Africa would remain backward and poor.

Miss Ada Wang Huanhuan, the leader of 15-member volunteer university students who are touring communities in the Upper West Region, said stories read or heard about Africa “tell us that the continent is not safe for investors but now we know that is not the case. Africa is safe for business transactions”.

Miss Huanhuan urged the media to “tell the good stories about the continent. Every country has its negative sides but they are not told or portrayed in larger proportions as has been done with Africa.”

The Chinese are collaborating with Rural Aid Action Programme (RAAP), a local non-governmental organisation dedicated to improving health, education, food security and income status of the rural people through technical and financial support.

Miss Huanhuan said the group was in the region to interact with the rural people and learn of their challenges with the view to soliciting support from Chinese companies and charitable organisations to provide them with mosquito nets and HIV/AIDS drugs.

She said the Chinese government had found Africa as a good development partner and her students would want to strengthen the relationship between the two countries for their mutual benefit.

Miss Huanhuan also called on Africans to be more time conscious, saying: “time wasted is money wasted and we need to change our behaviour towards time management in whatever we do”.

“Nothing achievable can be made with the practice of wasting time or delays. Time must be used judiciously to promote growth and wealth,” she said.

Mr. Kale Ceaser, Deputy Upper West Regional Minister, said violence, disease, illiteracy and poverty in general in any corner of the world have global ramifications and called for concerted global action to tackle them.

Mr. Ceaser told the students that poverty continued to be a bane in the region, with nine out of every 10 people considered poor, a situation he said must be quickly reversed through affirmative action to harness the development potentials of the region.

“In this effort, I believe we should start from the worse form of poverty; which is poverty of the mind. Poverty of the mind, does not only lead to powerlessness but also to a state of despair which inhibits any potential for human progress”, he said.

Mr. Ceaser urged the students to act as ambassadors of Ghana in China.

GNA