Life > March 27, 2008

By Kristen Guth | Staff writer

Ghana is on the books as the first country to host the Peace Corps program in 1961. Theo Yakah, a current graduate student from Ghana in the masters program of the communication department, first set foot on U.S. soil in 2006. He received a full scholarship from the university.

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His motivation came from the encouragement of a friendly Peace Corps member. Yakah had been working as a health community organizer when Nate Dunn, a California Polytechnic graduate and Peace Corps ambassador, arrived in desperate need of a translator for HIV and AIDS education. Yakah volunteered to translate because his English was superb.

He attended high school on scholarship and graduated just the year before with a top grade point average and as senior prefect, or student body president. He won several essay competitions on issues of social development and activism throughout his schooling.

Yakah and Dunn were able to explore topics beyond their immediate work and they became good friends.

“Nate asked me if I wanted to go to college, and I said ‘yeah, but it’s not realistic.’ He thought that was unacceptable and offered to pay for my application. So I applied to the University of Ghana and got accepted,” Yakah said.

Yakah was ecstatic to be going to college, but found that the funding proved to be more difficult than he imagined.

With his accolades and honors from high school, Yakah petitioned to different organizations and private sponsors to cover his tuition.

He painstakingly secured the money for four years of college to pursue a major in political science and philosophy.

As Yakah began his sophomore year, Dunn returned to start law school at the university and remained in touch as a good friend. Yakah continued to write political commentary.

Several of his opinion editorials were published in The Ghanaian Chronicle, the national equivalent of The New York Times.

His writing helped him achieve a prestigious summer internship with the Ghana Center for Democratic Development in 2005 as a rapporteur (someone who investigates issues and reports back to a deliberative body in international politics) and researcher.

With three other students from Ivy League universities, he worked with the leadership of Ghanaian Parliament.

He began dreaming about working directly with national government policy.

“When I got to my junior year, Nate suggested I take the GRE and some prep classes,” Yakah said. “At that point, I had never heard of the GRE, and America was far away.

“All I knew was that people came to America to hustle, they didn’t go for school. It was out of this world, like, America?!

“The American system will support you if you do well, and that became the motivation.”

After sending in applications to only three schools, Yakah was awarded a full scholarship in the university’s communication department graduate program, due in some part to Dunn personally handing Yakah’s application to Allan Louden, associate professor of communication.

“This was all about one American who decided to volunteer in far away Africa, and for some strange reason, he met me and thought I deserved better than what Ghana was offering,” Yakah said.

“Can you imagine if Kennedy had never signed the Peace Corps document? Nate always believed in me, even when I doubted my commitment.”

Dunn echoes the importance of the organization because of its ability to find dedicated people.

“Most Peace Corps volunteers leave and think they will change the world, but there’s only so much influence you can have, mostly on the immediate circle of people you interact with,” Dunn said. “I saw in Theo someone with an immense amount of potential, but he needed help in getting to a place where his gifts could be maximized. He’s the type of person that if he wanted to, he could be the president of Ghana one day.”

Yakah started classes here in August 2006, and endured major adjustments, including familiarizing himself with a computer keyboard.

“Everything was different when I arrived, but I was determined to excel because this chance doesn’t come often,” Yakah said.

“It paid off at the end of my first semester when I made straight A’s, and the few words that some of my professors here said that validated my intellect and my self-worth were priceless.

“I just started screaming and pointing at my grades on the computer screen to my roommate. That was my proudest day in America,” Yakah said.

In classes, students respond to Yakah’s interest in learning with mutual respect, and professors appreciate his discerning intellect and enthusiastic personality. “Theo has a charm, a wit, and a caring that can diminish international borders, and he brings a perspective from sub-Saharan African to bridge understanding,” Louden said.

“He was an engaging student in my freedom of speech and law class,” Vice President of Student Life Ken Zick said.

“There’s nothing more exciting for a teacher than discovering a student whose curiosity is insatiable.”

Students also appreciate Yakah’s insight and passion for scholarship.

“Theo always had a unique perspective in class on what we were discussing,” senior Darren Lindamood said.

“He was able to zoom out and capture the big picture well. He also has a theory that any two people can get along, with the exception of the criminally insane.”

Yakah has kept up with his interest in political systems. Most recently, he spent July 2007 working as a mentor and blogger for the Department of State’s Ben Franklin Transatlantic Summer Institute hosted by the communication department on campus.

In the past week, Yakah assisted with voter registration in Winston-Salem as a volunteer.

“Sometimes peoples’ hearts are good but they don’t know how to help or think the problems are too huge, and so they resign in frustration.

“But you can make a difference by helping even just one person if you only offer to step out. So much of the conflict and violence in Africa is because people have no opportunity and no hope.

“they hit the wall, and they think it’s just not worth the work and give up.”

Now in the final semester of his master’s program, Yakah will go on in August to attain the Master of Arts in law and diplomacy at the Fletcher School.

He received the letter two weeks ago naming him a Board of Overseers Scholar, a prestigious, full-tuition scholarship.

“If you give people the opportunity to excel, they will. I think back now, and the only thing that separates me from my childhood friends in Ghana is that I was lucky,” Yakah said.

“It’s not that I’m more talented than they are; it’s that I met someone from the Peace Corps. My frustration is that Ghana needs to create systems that are more predictable, reward hard work and give opportunities, like those that the Peace Corps make you think are possible.”

In the long-run, Yakah sees a bigger picture for himself coming to fruition.

He plans to work with the United Nations system to gain hands-on experience and then return to Ghana to run for public office and work in the government to build up the nation’s fledgling infrastructural systems.

“America will continue to develop on its own,” Dunn said. “It doesn’t need Theo.

“But Ghana needs the best and the brightest. It needs him.”