When Ghana needed help to develop its higher education disaster management capability, the country got it in the form of Carol Cwiak, faculty and internship coordinator for the emergency management program housed in the Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Emergency Management.
Cwiak’s mission was through the North Dakota National Guard’s State Partnership Program, which has been working specifically with Ghana since 2004. In Ghana, the National Disaster Management Organization asked for assistance in building a higher education program in emergency management. The State Partnership Program turned to NDSU, a leader in the field of emergency management education.
“It allows us to take the collective brain power that has been built and apply it in this type of global outreach in a way that we can really create some change,” Cwiak said. “There is no other emergency management higher education program in the U.S. doing what we’re doing right now with the State Partnership Program Model. We’re it.”
Cwiak worked with the National Disaster Management Organization and the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration, a university located in the country’s capital, Accra. In February, she spent a week in Ghana reviewing their existing disaster plans and building what she believes will be an enduring relationship with Ghana’s higher education system.
“They were invested in producing the highest quality product with the limited number of resources they have,” Cwiak said.
While the United States pushes citizen preparedness as a large part of emergency management, Ghana’s primary focus is on response and recovery. People in Ghana cannot wait a week for needed supplies after a disaster. Most can only buy enough food for the day and don’t have supplies to make it through much more than that.
The link between Ghana and NDSU will continue to be facilitated by the State Partnership Program. The goal is to start week-long courses in September with members from NDSU, the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration and the National Disaster Management Organization. Educators in Ghana will work with NDSU instructors for the first course delivery, so in the future they can present the courses themselves. During the next five to seven years, Ghana will move toward providing a higher education degree. NDSU faculty in the Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Emergency Management with other focus areas also may help expand the courses in the future. Emergency Management has a strong base in sociology, Cwiak noted.
“The university’s commitment and support for our outreach efforts has been very good and evidences the fact that they value contributions from the community by way of service,” Cwiak said. “That contribution piece is what will keep us going out to do this type of work. The point is to use our program’s collective expertise to create the change that needs to occur in the larger community – be it local or global.”