.....We Mourn In Oslo!

Who will mourn Yaw? Who will shed a tear? Poor Yaw, if there is a tear let it drop and let the mourning hurry, for he is on his way out to his creator and all his worldly thoughts and make-ups have come to nought. For your sake and your demise, Damirifa Due Due, Due Ne Amanehunu!!!

I spoke to Yaw on Sunday 5th august 2007. He was not well and on his hospital bed at “Ullevaal sykehus”, not yet beaten! He was upbeat about the future, the future of Ghana. We had previously on a walk together talked about he moving home to help the motherland organise her labour and welfare system and we were upbeat, (for I also work in the same sector). We believed in one thing only, and I strongly shared that view that like Sodom and Gomorra, if we could find a good political party to adopt with six idealistic men who are selfless and devoted like Nkrumah we can turn our country around! We decided that when he became well, we would discuss this further and travel to Ghana to deal with the matter.

On Wednesday 8th august 4pm, I had an appointment to visit him with the daughter, we delayed and he could not wait. He died leaving behind a son and a daughter and a buried prospect for the future. The man I came to know a short while ago left a mark on me and as I write, I shed a tear. Maybe the only tear there can be…….. Below is all about the man and his prowess. May he rest in peace and may the good Lord have mercy on his poor soul, Amen;

http://www.uio.no/iss/news/2005/news24062005.html

Yaw Amoako-Addo, Norwegian expert on the social welfare state, and ISS Course Leader in Contemporary Norwegian Society (ISSSV 1753) gave a series of lectures on the welfare state and Norwegian minority polices at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota and Augsburg College in Minneapolis, March 11 to March 14, 2005. His talks focused on the creation of social security for all people living in Norway and the major objective of Norwegian social policy, ''Help towards self-help''. He also discussed the economic and labor implications of an integrated social policy, and met with students and faculty at both colleges.

Professor Amoako-Addo has lectured and published widely on issues of immigration, elder care, social security and labour policy, and the social welfare state. He is currently a Fulbright Visiting Scholar at the John W. McCormack Graduate School of Policy Studies at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, where he is working on a policy analysis of the Norwegian social insurance system with respect to income distribution and retirement benefits. Prof. Amoako-Addo took his Sosionom eksamen at the Norwegian School of Public Administration and Social Work at Oslo University College in 1971. He then went on to study at Gothenburg University, Sweden, where he received a Master of Social Science degree, and at the University of Oslo where he was awarded a Cand. Oecon. in 1988.

Yaw Amoako-Addo is Associate Professor in Economics at Buskerud University College. Since 1973 he has been on the faculty of the Oslo International Summer School, where he leads a course in Contemporary Norwegian Society and teaches social policy of the Norwegian welfare state.

Prof. Amoako-Addo has also worked as a social worker in Ghana and Norway. He has lived in Norway since 1967, and is a Norwegian citizen.

Prof. Amoako-Addo's visit to St. Olaf and Augsburg was made possible by a generous grant from the Norwegian Foreign Ministry. His public lecture, as well as classroom visits, were co-sponsored by the Norwegian Department, Oslo International Summer School, Department of Social Work, faculties of Interdisciplinary and General Studies and Social Sciences, the Leraas Interdisciplinary Lecture Fund, and Northfield Nordmanns-Forbundet. Proffessor Amoako-Addo was 64years old and friends and loved ones are mourning him in silence. I ask all Ghanaians in the Diaspora to pray for his soul and family.

Festus K. Lartey-Adjei
Labour Consultant
Oslo, Norway