What British High Commissioner Harriet Thompson has been doing with British-Ghanaian businesses in 2022
The British High Commissioner to Ghana, Harriet Thompson has been visiting many trail-blazing British-Ghanaian businesses this year and has recruited a new Diaspora Team.
Thompson and the Head of Strategic Partnerships and Diaspora, Jasmine Griffiths, have spent the first half of 2022 visiting some British-Ghanaian movers and shakers working across the country’s business community.
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A press release from the British High Commission said they kicked-off their visits with the team at Shell Foundation, a UK charity supporting Freezelink, a Ghanaian temperature-controlled transport and warehousing company founded by Owusu Akoto.
Both Owusu and the Shell Foundation’s West Africa Regional Manager, Kwaku Owusu-Achaw met with the British High Commission Team to talk about the progress of the company.
Shell Foundation (SF) is a registered charity, founded by Shell in 2000, that exists to support people living in low-income communities to escape poverty and ease hardship. Creating and scaling business solutions to enhance access to energy and affordable transport as a means to achieve this.
Since the first visit to Freezelink at the beginning of the year, Harriet and Jasmine have gone on to visit and met with some of them.
• Sylvia Arthur who founded LOATAD (Library of Africa and The African Diaspora), housing books by writers of African, African-American, Caribbean, Black European, Afro-Latin, and Indigenous descent.
LOATAD has over 4000 volumes of literary fiction and narrative nonfiction dating from the early 20th century to the present day.
• Izzy Obeng at Foundervine, an international training consultancy which made it onto Forbe’s 30 list of Social Impact 2022.
Foundervine specialises in start- up and scale-up acceleration programmes and has partnered with Ghana Science & Tech Explorer Prize which helped 20,000 young people access STEM and enterprise skills.
• Andrew Takyi- Appiah Director and co-Founder of Zeepay, one of Ghana’s fastest growing Fintechs.
Zeepay is one of Ghana’s fastest growing Fintechs, focusing on digital rails to connect digital assets such as mobile money wallets, cards, ATMs, Bank Accounts and Digital tokens to International Money Transfer Operators. Zeepay control about 22% of remittances to Ghana and work with about 50 corporate institutions all over the world.
• Sustainability champion, Valerie Labi, co-founder of Cargo Bikes, who offer a solution to the problem of increasing carbon emissions from vehicles.
Cargo Bikes offer a solution to the problem of increasing carbon emissions from vehicles, which pose serious danger to many African cities due to cataclysmic rises in air pollution, congestion and fuel prices.
Amasons’ Company Limited is an audio-visual production company.
• And finally, Eben Awuah, at Dr Mensa Otabil’s newly built International Central Gospel Church-Christ Temple East, where Eben’s company Amason, an audio-visual has just installed a state-of-the art sound system.
The British High Commission in Ghana has long championed the work of British-Ghanaians; this increased after HRH Prince Charles and HRH The Duchess of Cornwall visited Ghana in 2018. Today the High Commission continues to work with our diaspora friends, partners and colleagues to grow opportunities and partnerships.
The Mission worked closely with the Diaspora Affairs Office of the President and the Ministry of Tourism during the Year of Return and Beyond the Return initiative and continues to partner with Diaspora-led events such as Tech in Ghana, Afronation and Afrochella.
To ensure the ongoing mutual success of the High Commission’s work and partnership with the Diaspora, the Mission is growing by creating and recruiting two new leadership roles within the team: Head of Diaspora Relations & Strategic Partnerships, and Diaspora Engagement Manager.
Commenting on the work of the Diaspora team, British High Commissioner to Ghana, Harriet Thompson said:
“The people connections between the UK and Ghana are to be treasured. Ghanaian-British, British-Ghanaians and members of the diaspora have so much to offer both countries. I have loved my visits to these trailblazers, and there are so many more on our list to visit. We want to do more with these communities, which is why we are expanding our Strategic Partnership & Diaspora team with two new roles.
“We are looking for individuals to ‘own’ the High Commission’s relationship with the diaspora and diaspora institutions and help to coordinate the main tools of the UK’s cultural power. They will establish a new public-facing British-Ghana Diaspora Office – the first of its type in the world for the UK, to build and enhance our strategic partnership with organisations such as the British Museum, V & A, Clarence House, Tech in Ghana, Ghana Museums Board, iconic British brands, and other major cultural institutions”.