On the 2nd of October
2016, Christmal Dela Christmals held a mentorship and career guidance session
with the members of the Global Evangelical Students and Associates’ Ministry,
University of Health and Allied Sciences Chapter (GESAM-UHAS) under the
“Exploits of Grace 2016” programme.
Profile of Facilitator
Christmal Dela Christmals hails
from Keta, Volta Region, Ghana. He started his
elementary education at Anlo State School, and completed at Anloga Donorgbor
Junior High School (JHS). CD Christmals’ mother is one of the five wives of
Christmals’ Snr, a fisherman father who neglected his fatherhood responsibilities.
CD Christmals had to spend his childhood with his grandmother. Nonetheless, CD
Christmals did not allow his difficulties to distract him from his goals. His
determination earned him admission to Keta Senior High Technical School
(Ketasco), where he farmed throughout his stay in order to sustain himself.
After completing Ketasco, he earned admission into University of Cape Coast
where he pursued a degree in BSc Nursing.
During his undergraduate education,
the curriculum research expert recalled that he had to shift between his
academic work and “galamsey teaching in Junior High Schools” in order to fend
for himself. After a short stint in the working world, he continued his
education in the University of Witwatersrand (Wits), South Africa- with support
from his mentor, Professor Janet J. Gross.
He came out successfully of his
master’s degree programme and is currently working on his PhD in nursing
education with research focus on master’s degree level nursing curriculum of
topmost universities in Western, Eastern and Southern Africa. CD Christmals has
worked as a nurse, lecturer and nose, ear and throat (ENT) consultant in the
past.
Presentation Highlights
CD Christmals begun the
presentation with his life story. He proceeded to advice the congregation on
the need to build values of hard work, determination and discipline. The mentor
and career coach cited himself as an example for the students, “I had saved
money toward my first degree education when I was teaching, even though I was
hungry, I did not ‘eat’ my savings because if I ate it, I would have eaten my
degree”.
In addition he told the students that “it is very good to be resistant
because that is what you need to overcome challenges”. Furthermore, the Wits
university alumnus charged the students to never allow anything to distract
their focus. On the subject of hard work, CD Christmals told the audience to
always work hard, especially whilst building foundation because one “cannot
progress on a weak foundation”.
The event got more fascinating
when CD Christmals guided the participants through the formulation of a 5-year,
10-year and 15-year goals plan. For each of the stated time category, each
person was tasked to shape a plan A, plan B and plan C: this way, an individual
is certain that one of the plans shall bear fruits.
He added that it is very
important for the goals to be set in a specific, measurable, attainable, realistic,
and time-bound manner. In furtherance, the protégé of Prof Janet Gross
encouraged the students to dream as big as they desire because God is ever
willing to give unto all mankind to the measure of their dreams. However, he
reiterated that “dreams will not just happen like that, you have to focus and
work hard”.
The programme ended with a questions-and-answers’ segment, which CD
Christmals expertly responded to.
One of the replies that is sure to have
dampened the spirits of most young ladies crushing on the young and charming
scholar was when he confessed that he is “single but highly attached, with all
receptors full”
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