He could have ended up a vagabond at Amamomo, one of Accra’s indigenous communities, but for the keen interest his relatives took in his education. They ensured that he did not only attend school always but also performed well regularly.
This, coupled with the academic potential he was endowed with, helped him to be regular at school.
In fact, as a child, this young boy’s father would occasionally take him out to meet successful people from the community. His father’s intention was to give him the opportunity to interact with them, and get him inspired to achieve great laurels in life.
Personalities such as the former President, Prof. John Evans Atta Mills, Mr Samuel Odoi Sykes, an astute lawyer and politician; Lawyer Agyabeng, and one of Ghana’s finest gynecologists, Dr Chinery, are a few of those accomplished people that this young boy was privileged to meet and speak with for inspiration.
Today, he is a career diplomat who works with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Currently, he is the Deputy UNDP Country Director for Rwanda.
Mr Ishmael Nii Amanor Dodoo, an Oxford University graduate, was in the country for a short vacation when Junior Graphic caught up with him at the plush Movenpick Hotel in Accra to share his childhood story with children.
His was a humble beginning. At Amamomo, a typical Ga community where he grew up, one would find all sorts of indigenous Ga boxers, footballers and members of various cultural troupes.
In fact, his late father, Mr Emmanuel Offei Dodoo, was a footballer who played for the national team, the Black Stars, just like most of the children who grew up at Amamomo.
According to Mr Dodoo, while there were children who loved to go to school, there were others who did not like to be in school because they had chosen not to. There were also others who couldn’t simply attend school because their parents could not afford it, he said.
Living in that environment, Young Dodoo was sometimes tempted to follow his peers to go and watch football matches at the expense of attending school but then, his disciplinarian father would not allow him to do that.
Other distractions in the neighbourhood, he said, included a cinema house (Palladium Cinema) which was well patronised by most children in the community.
At school, he recalled that his friends would often discuss some of those movies they had watched and in order not to be left out of the conversation, he made up stories that seemed to suggest he had also watched the movies.
Chores
As a little boy, Young Ishmael performed various chores to help at home. These included:
• Carrying his mum’s wares, which were scarfs to Kwasiadwaso every morning before going to school.
• Assisting his mum to sell her stuff at the market after school.
• Sweeping and cleaning their compound.
• Fetching water for the household.
• Regularly, he walked to the chief’s palace to observe proceedings because he is from the royal family and had to learn about his lineage.
Education
It will surprise you to know that despite his good academic performance, Young Dodoo did not attend any private school. He, in fact, attended the St Mary’s Anglican Primary School.
Young as he was then, Dodoo identified that products of public schools could neither read nor write well so in order to overcome that, he decided to make friends with other children who were in the private schools.
His hope was that he would learn from them and also have a good command of the English Language. “I didn’t want them to look down on me because I attended a public school,” he said.
And you know, he and those friends ended up forming an elitist group at Amamomo and through that he read a lot of books, including those by Hadley Chase as well as Mills and Boons.
Young Dodoo was so academically gifted that he easily gained admission to the Kinbu Experimental School, which at the time was a prestigious school because it was one of the three experimental schools in the country.
The difficulty, however, was that he had to trek on foot all the way from home to Kwasiadwaso every morning and then continue to Kinbu. That notwithstanding, he was happy to be a product of the Kinbu Experimental School, he said with pride.
To excel in his school work at Accra Academy, Young Dodoo made some of his seniors his mentors so that they would give him past questions and also assist him with school work.
Even though academically Young Dodoo could cope at Accra Academy, the excessive bullying became a problem for him. At a point, he confessed he had to lie to avoid being bullied.
He studied Natural Resources Management at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, where he graduated with First Class.
He continued his education at the Oxford University. After his education, he worked with a number of institutions before joining the UNDP in 1998.
Since joining the UNDP, Mr Dodoo has served in various leadership and management capacities in both programmes and operational areas in Liberia and Tanzania.
Mr Dodoo is married with children and advised children to be confident, focussed on what they do and have the belief that it shall be well with them.
