Student Profile: Johnson Masagotin Singir
Johnson is the first of twenty one children and hails from Nakpanduri in the Northern Region of Ghana. This November, he will be graduating with a chemistry degree from the University for Development Studies in Tamale, Ghana. Johnson ambitions to be a quality control officer in a water treatment company or any industry affiliated with consumables like food, water and/or drugs. He initially wanted to work in hospital laboratories upon the completion of his degree, but after two internships at the hospital, he opted to do his third summer internship with the Ghana Water Company, a government owned water treatment facility. The time he spent in the water treatment company provided a fresh direction to his career path and he decided to focus on quality control in the consumables industry.
Johnson became a Brighter Investment student in his third year at the University when all of his father’s proceeds from the harvest season were burned in a fire outbreak and there was no money to cover his tuition fees. Johnson pleaded with the school authorities for a payment extension. His plea was rejected but just when he was resigning to fate he found an alternative: a lecturer in the University, who understood his plight told him about Brighter Investment and recommended that he apply for it.
His experience with his assigned mentor, a chemist with Halliburton, he asserts was a life changer for him and his family. His father passed on when he was in his final year and Johnson automatically had to step into the big shoes his father left as the head of the family. He said he would probably have lost it had it not been for his mentor who was constantly by his side encouraging him and providing support through the trying times.
“Brighter Investment gives you a chance at a bright future, they give you a future to hope for. With Brighter Investment you can go to bed peacefully knowing that nothing can really stop you.”
His mentor also told him about an organization that recruited bright tertiary graduating students on a 2 year graduate trainee program into the Ghana Civil Service. His mentor guided him through the application and interview processes and now he is an Emerging Public Leaders’ Fellow. In summing up his experience he said, “I am grateful to God and to Brighter Investment for giving me hope and for blessing me with a mentor who is committed to seeing me succeed. The future indeed is bright for me and my family because of the chance that Brighter Investment gave me at a better life”.
Johnson has already started to give back to the Brighter Investment community. He currently volunteers as a peer mentor in the Brighter Cohort Meetup, the mentorship program designed for junior students, and continues to recommend the program to friends and colleagues whenever the opportunity presents itself. Volunteering in these capacities equipped him with vital leadership and organizational skills he is confident will be valuable in his professional journey.
Johnson has recommended many more students to the program and hopes to do even more in the future. According to him, there are so many people like him who need the help and support and he would not be quiet on such a golden opportunity that brought hope to his hopeless situation: “Brighter Investment gives you a chance at a bright future, they give you a future to hope for. With Brighter Investment you can go to bed peacefully knowing that nothing can really stop you.”