Determinant News First Edition

Mix Pimple

2006-01-01T07:22:00.000-08:00

By Freda Appiah

SLEEP HELPS TO SOLVE PROBLEMS

Many people have found that a problem unresolved at bedtime seems much simpler in the morning, as if the brain had been quietly working on it overnight. Sleep doesn’t only solve problems but is a form of refresher for the brain and reorganizes itself during sleep.

Sleep is good for the body; during the day the body under goes several processes. God saw that sleep was good that is why he created day and night so that after the days work man will retire to his bed to sleep. We sometimes go to bed very tired and worn-out but we come out from bed very relieved from our tiredness. This show how powerful sleep is. Sleep acts as a creative learning process

DRESSING AND APPEARANCE AT WORK

Always create a good first impression; your looks affect your self-confidence. The better your self image the positive your attitude .You will never have a second chance to correct your first impression. Your dress and personal grooming make a powerful statement about you and the organization you work for.

Your dress must suit the job; hairstyle and make- up should be neat. Ladies put on a lot of jewellery when going out but its different when going to work. We must wear little jewellery they should be noiseless that is no dangling earrings. Our feet should be in closed shoes, well polished and well heeled. Nails and hands should be presentable, wipe off all chipped nail polish. Do not soak yourself in perfume, avoid mouth and body odour. You must feel good and confident in your dress and shoes.

Our Rights

2006-01-01T07:15:00.000-08:00

Housing Rights – demand now or never
By Mardey Ohui Ofoe

Housing Rights is one of the critical challenges facing developing countries. The ability to provide decent housing for people in spite of our so called advancement has eluded us. Underprivileged people from everywhere in the world face evictions. Landlords are also caught up with financial motivations and do not for any reasons consider humanitarian issues. The story cannot be told of the People with disabilities in their quest to seek accommodation
Housing Rights is one of the basic in human life since it is linked to the very survival and wellbeing. The issues that emerge from housing are undisciplined tenants, cruel landlord, lack of house facilities, bad sewage systems and others.
Land and housing markets are always more complex, varied and dynamic than they appear to be at first sight, especially the informal, illegal or semi-legal markets that serve the underprivileged. Good policies have to start by recognizing these complexities.
Improving housing is therefore a central priority, not an optional consideration. Housing, development and poverty eradication are linked with each other in a reciprocal fashion: policy-makers must recognize and build on these links, and find better ways to re-direct more of the benefits of the housing process to underprivileged people. This is likely to involve direct intervention in markets, especially on the supply side.
The way forward may lie in new combinations of actors and roles which achieve a better synthesis between market efficiency, social equity, and environmental sustainability. Policy must be imaginative and experimental.
Housing finance is all about getting money to people who want to build or buy houses. If development is to be realized, it must draw on the knowledge of local residents about their needs.
I have wondered how we could talk about basic health care with a total neglect of housing. Women and children are the highest of victims when it comes to poor housing. Apart from South Africa, where the former President Nelson Mandela committed himself to providing housing for households in Soweto, African presidents are not ashamed of the slums that slap them in the face during political campaigns.
In Ghana one, could access ten’s of documents on housing reviews. Which unfortunately this is left on the shelves. With my eyes closed, and my hands on the chief director of the ministry of works and housing book shelve, I could say that we have adequate research on how descent housing could be provided for single parents if not all disadvantaged groups.
Disadvantaged people have a right to access descent housing. National and international governments cannot continue the game by pretending to be alleviating poverty if women do not have the base to administer their lives in preventing infant mortality and maternal death.

Environmental Concerns

2006-01-01T07:05:00.000-08:00

Lavender Hill- requested gift

By Mardey Ohui Ofoe

Beneath the perfume and the mirror we enjoy in our washrooms, lies the horror of our lives. When you enter every glamorous space just ask to see the ugly space covered. Perhaps this is why all that is beautiful is not all beautiful and all that is gold is not all gold.

Just that developing countries are washing their dirty linen in public, exposing the hidden extensions of human beings. These days very meeting tables can not end without a talk about sustainable development. Obviously development has become the tune for early birds.

Among the thoughts of development comes the sustainance of the ecology. Meaning our activities should not destroy the natural creation that supports our living. Obviously it cannot be said that the direct disposal of the human excreta into the see which finally settles in the lagoon to be dredged using another energy is sustainable development.

In the middle of Accra, the capital of Ghana is a free shop at the end of British Accra, lavender hill where perfumes that money cannot buy are sold. The shop attracts the attention of Presidents, Ministers, Women Activist, Medical Doctors, Farmers, and Polices Officers who cannot escape the arrest they experience on daily basis.

Search engines on the internet can produce countless documents on waste management in Ghana and other African countries.

Just in case you are interested in a successful organic waste process, it has been noted that it is of great help if the organic (natural waste) and non-organic waste (artificial waste such as plastic) is separated at source. Where waste is separated at source, it lessens the risk of contamination.

It is here that the responsibility is thrown back onto the generator of the waste, the public. Many successful schemes are only successful because of community participation in the activities on a day-to-day basis and effective policy implementation.
Let’s know that every citizen has a right to clean air and must hold herself and that of government officials responsible.

World Matters

2006-01-01T05:50:00.000-08:00

New Liberia, old Liberians?
By Mardey Ohui Ofoe

“... I promise that I will conduct myself and the affairs of the country in a manner that brings pride to the women of Liberia, Africa and the world," Johnson-Sirleaf said in comments broadcast live on radio”.
“The election marks the end of an era. An era of political and social exclusion. We will create and formulate an inclusive government, I promise you that," said the 67-year-old president-elect.
The celebration of the people by cheering, singing and dancing does not in any way erase the huge work ahead of Madam President. Supporters of the Liberian woman calling "Iron Lady" and "Mama Ellen" celebrated outside Johnson-Sirleaf's home and the headquarters of the Unity Party, bringing traffic to a standstill after Liberia's electoral authorities confirmed Johnson-Sirleaf's win by a wide margin.
Supporters of the former AC Milan striker, who has a strong following, mostly young Liberians, staged street protests last week, some of which turned into clashes with police.
International observers had praised the elections, the first since the end of a 14-year civil war in the West African state, as free, fair and peaceful.
Among the solidarity messages received were those of World President His Excellency Kofi Annan, President Jacques Chirac of France, Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo and many others.
Successive Liberian regimes, adamant in their politics of exclusion and obsessed with power and political gains, lived and ruled by the sword, and those who naively expected a departure from this value system under men who reduced the country to utter primitive levels for the presidency, determined to win power by all means and at all costs, grossly showed their ineptitude in defying history and ignoring reality.
But this endless scramble for power and resources, and the dichotomy between Amricos and natives, are carefully avoided by political elites since it is subject with imbedded sensitivity.
The winds of intolerance raging over Liberia since its founding in 1822 by freed American slaves, continue to blow with devastating effects despite a coup d'etat over 2 decades ago in the name of change, followed by a war of terror in the name of justice. Of all the difficult jobs on earth the world will learn from madam president’s example of making the Amricos and natives Liberians stakeholders of the country.
As capable as President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf has proved to rally the people of Liberia towards the rebuilding of Liberia, the human fiber in Liberia must gather their lions to render their sacrificial contributions to rebuild Liberia, to annihilate the years of destruction done the country.