Challenges

The main challenge she has observed is the skills gap which makes it difficult to find individuals with the right skills to work with. This, she says, can be blamed on the education system which primarily focuses on theoretical training. As an employer, this comes at a cost to her as she has to spend time and money in training employees all the time.

The Ghana Climate Innovation Centre (GCIC) is training her to use sustainable ways of producing the materials and also use effective business models to develop the business and make it more impactful and profitable.

What the government must do

Margaretha feels the government’s focus should be centered more on primary education as that is the beginning of the learning process for children.

“I think more attention should be given to primary education. There are so many children who complete junior high school and still finds it difficult to read. So I think more focus should be centered on primary education and that will make the other levels of education easy for the children”.

A good reason to stay in Ghana

For Margaretha, the main thing that motivates her to keep living in Ghana far away from her family and friends is the friendly culture in the country.

“What I really enjoy in the Ghanaian society is the way people relate with one another. It is much more open and friendly because in the past ten years in Europe everybody is afraid of everybody, whereas here people are friendly”.

And again, the desire to make a change in society motivates her to continue living in Ghana. Compared with her country of origin, she says, every basic need is satisfied and there is not much to be done in areas like education to cause a change in the community, so living in Ghana gives her some level of satisfaction she will never have got in the Netherlands.

Advice to parents

“Parents should become much more involved in the education of their children and they should own the system. They should hold schools accountable for the development and performance of their children. It is not about just paying school fees, it is about holding the schools accountable. If parents will not do it, the government won’t do it either.”

GCIC is a pioneering business incubator with a unique focus of developing SME ventures and entrepreneurs in Ghana’s ‘Green Economy’. Their mission is to develop and support an exceptional set of transformational ventures and entrepreneurs who are pioneering adaptive and mitigating solutions for climate change issues in Ghana. They focus on five key economic sectors (energy efficiency & renewable energy; solar power; climate smart agriculture; domestic waste management; water management and purification). The services provided by GCIC includes the provision of premium business advisory and business mentoring services, technical support in the development, prototyping and testing of their innovation, as well as financial Proof of Concept grants to qualifying SMEs within our incubator.