ACTIVITIES:

Internships

AYPC’s internship programme is known as Young Libertarian Mentorship. The aim is to nurture young people for a career in Free Market Public Policy, and to broaden their knowledge of political economy and classical liberal thought (libertarianism). Interns provide assistance in doing research and in oganising seminars and conferences.

Every week we hold a research seminar on law, economics, and politics, and lectures on libertarianism. Interns participate in bi-weekly workshops on public speaking, conducting research, and writing skills.

WHO CAN APPLY?

We accept interns from high schools and universities every summer and spring. Summer interns spend two months, spring interns spend six weeks.

ARE INTERNS PAID?

Interns receive a weekly allowance for lunch and transport. We are not responsible for accommodation. Interested students and recent graduates can contact us.

STUDENT NETWORK

The student network is a monthly newsletter for students, youth, and recent graduates. It contains articles and information about events having libertarian themes. It facilitates keeping in touch with our Freedom Seminar alumni scattered around the country.

Articles are accepted from young people and others interested in free market education of youth. You can send your articles to us here. Please put STUDENT NETWORK as the subject of the e-mail.

FREEDOM AND SOCIETY SEMINARS

Freedom and Society Seminars are organised in schools, colleges, and communities to introduce young people to libertarian principles and philosophy. Attendees explore the role of limited government, individual liberty, private property rights, free markets, the rule of law, and government non-interference in ensuring peace and prosperity.

The seminars teach young people to differentiate between sound arguments and economic nonsense, prepare them to make better personal decisions, and boost their understanding of why some countries are wealthy and others are very poor. In addition, youth are encouraged to focus on the significance of institutions and policies, and to channel their vigour into creating knowledge that is useful in creating a better Africa. The youth learn, share ideas, and make new friends irrespective of their tribal, political, and religious differences. They eventually develop the kind of character other people seek for insights and explanations; these future leaders are trained to be effective advocates of the principles of a just, free, peaceful, and prosperous Africa.

We have daily and weekend seminars. We also have Freedom Camps, where young people spend a week delving into libertarian principles interspersed with activities such as voluntary service, ICT, and entrepreneurial skills. After the seminar, participants are encouraged to set up chapters of AYPC or Liberty Study Groups in their schools, colleges, and communities to continue and advance the study of liberty.

You can invite the Freedom Seminars team to hold a seminar at your school, college or community, and we will gladly accept your invitation. Interested teachers, students, youth and community leaders can invite us by writing us here.

DOING BUSINESS IN AFRICA

Africans have ideas, but lack institutions and policies to nurture them into wealth and enterprises. Most African countries languish at the bottom of the World Bank’s “Doing Business” index. This advocacy programme highlights the bottlenecks in doing business in Africa. It also serves as an early warning about economic policies that will lead to stagnation.

We generate and disseminate research, and write policy papers and opinion pieces on the African business environment to sway policy and public opinion, in order to make the environment more attractive to foreign direct investment and sustained domestic investment. We teach how to do this while dealing with:

• Burdensome Taxes
• Trade Barriers
• Business Incorporation
• Insecure Property Rights

Doing Business in Africa also takes a look at why businesses fail in Africa. We will soon start an annual survey that will identify Africa’s most business-friendly nation.

YOUTH IN FREE ENTERPRISE

Youth in Free Enterprise seeks to impart entrepreneurial skills to young students and recent graduates. We teach such basics as record-keeping, writing business plans, conducting market surveys, and ICT skills.

The programme encourages young people to consider creating jobs for themselves instead of looking to the state. We currently run “After School Blues” Entrepreneurship Workshops and a Kente weaving centre.

We will soon add a micro-credit scheme to this programme to make capital available to the youth.

JOURNALIST WORKSHOPS

Journalists have an enormously important role to play in waging the war of ideas. The annual Journalist Workshops bring together mainstream media personnel to study classical liberalism and how it underpins prosperity.

The workshops provide insight into the philosophy of freedom to help journalists understand the political economy. The presentations by free market experts focus on policy, and offer an opportunity for journalists to understand and interpret statist public policy vs. free-market policies.

A greater understanding of free-market economics will help journalists to understand and write about issues with more clarity and confidence. Issues like property rights, the role of private education, free trade, privatisation of infrastructure and utilities, the role of the state, free market environmentalism, and health care have economic implications. Improving journalists’ understanding of these issues will place them in a good position to influence policy as second-hand dealers of ideas and communicators. The workshops provide a forum for media practitioners to inquire, learn, and critically analyse how to propagate sound economic ideas, development strategies, and wealth-creation principles.

DIALOGUES AND PANEL DISCUSSIONS

AYPC holds regular dialogues that provide a forum for discussing current and vital topics, to help direct policy and public opinion. The discussions stimulate extensive debate among policy makers, experts, analysts, opinion leaders, legislators, and pressmen.

Some recent dialogue topics:

• Strangling Business with Taxes
• Fighting Malaria in Ghana
• Building Your Own Business

SCHOOL CHOICE

School choice means that parents can choose the schooling they think is right for their child. Very soon we plan to launch a nationwide School Choice Campaign advocating for the right of children and their parents to choose which school to attend.

Rich and middle class parents already have a variety of private schools where they can send their children, but parents with low incomes are also making large investments in their children’s future, and in spite of their aspirations, cannot afford to choose the best education for their children. These parents are forced to send their children to the inefficient government schools.

Allowing parents to make the most basic decision about which school their children will attend will likely have the additional benefit of making government schools more accountable and efficient. Current educational policy removes competition and choice from our school system, robbing it of innovation and diversification. Further, a lack of accountability throughout the system fundamentally flaws the public schools, and makes supervision ineffective.

Our children are at risk of being indoctrinated into statism (state worship) by the state-run schools. And isn’t it an absolute tragedy to see more than 150 students in one classroom, staffed by only one teacher? We seem to be paying to achieve failure.

Using school-centred subsidies instead of pupil-centred grants appears to push private basic schools out of the system. If for-profit schools can offer better education than non-profit, why should anyone hinder them? A competitive environment gives for-profit schools a stronger incentive to provide quality education at a reasonable price.

Through radio commentaries, research projects, publications, and opinion pieces, we attempt to sway public policy and opinion on educational reforms. Currently, we are striving to replace the government’s recent discriminatory school-centred Capitation Grant policy by introducing pupil-centred grants for basic schools.

School choice, therefore, provides the best way of achieving the goals of protecting the child’s right to education (clearly enshrined in our Constitution), and the parents’ right to choose what is best for their child.

How should school choice be implemented? Who should be eligible to participate, and what rules and regulations are needed? Is school choice constitutional?

• Tax Cedis for education should follow students to the schools their parents choose, whether private or public.
• Headmasters/mistresses and teachers should be rewarded when their schools excel. (The current public system rewards failure.)
• Parents should be given enough funding to be able to choose among high-quality secular as well as religious schools.
• Entrepreneurs and businesses (edupreneurs) should be free to start or manage schools.
• Schools should not receive public funding if they teach hatred or the inferiority of any person or group.
• Parents who choose inexpensive schools should be allowed to deposit their savings into Education Savings Accounts, to be used to pay for other educational expenses or high school/college tuition.
• Schools should be regulated only to the extent needed to ensure the safety of students and staff.

PUBLIC LECTURES

We organise an annual public lecture with a foreign expert as the speaker. The audience consists of politicians, policy makers, analysts, business association members, pressmen, think tank leaders, trade unionists, and students. This lecture stimulates debate on national and international issues that directly or indirectly affect all of us.

NEWSLETTER:

Free Your Mind is a bi-monthly newsletter that targets young people. It aims to inform and educate them about contemporary classical liberalism. Articles and questions are solicited from young people and others who are interested in teaching our youth about the philosophy of freedom.

Free Your Mind lucidly illustrates free-market economics, the philosophy of freedom, and the role of the individual vs. the state. It comes with interesting cartoons that use satire to ridicule and expose the dinosaur-like, inefficient, and politically correct state that continues to erode our freedom every day.

The “Get It Off Your Mind” page answers your questions on liberty, and offers opinions and suggestions. So don’t forget to send your opinions, questions, and letters to us. We will pay a small royalty for your cartoons and articles that we publish.

We distribute the newsletter free of charge to school and college libraries, individuals, youth organisations, and other non-profit entities. You can send subscriptions, articles, cartoons, letters, and questions to afrikanuskofi@gmail.com

We encourage reps in the regions and other libertarian youth organisations to bring their events and programme announcements, and we will publish them free of charge.