February 11, 2025

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Business is my step

Liberty and Prospect: A Togolese-American story

3 min read

In West Africa on the Gulf of Guinea stands Lomé, a port of trade and transportation hub that is the coronary heart of Togo’s overall economy.

This was the tropical, Atlantic Coastline residence to Sgt. Kouami Honkpo by means of his childhood. Honkpo — now an incentives expert in the Ohio Countrywide Guard Schooling and Incentives Office as a total-time federal technician and a human sources expert with the 371st Sustainment Brigade in his common placement — remembers incredibly hot times viewing and participating in soccer, welcoming people in all places and particular periods with his spouse and children.

The cash town of Lomé is explained to be a combine of previous and new, the two an overgrown village and a cosmopolitan town of in excess of 1 million folks. It is a tourism desired destination with white shorelines and a attractive countryside, but Togo is also just one of the 10 poorest international locations in the planet, in accordance to the Intercontinental Monetary Fund. The place experienced been ruled by armed forces leaders since the late 1960s. Freedoms that are a 2nd assumed in western cultures, which include the U.S., ended up confined and elections did not definitely supply alternate options to the rulers who held electric power.

Honkpo knew he would have to depart his house to make a much better life for himself in the U.S., 1 with far more chance and liberty. “All my pals still left Togo to go after possibilities and make a better existence for themselves,” he said.

Honkpo arrived to the U.S. on a Variety Immigrant Visa Application and settled in Ohio, earning a bachelor’s diploma in financial management from Columbus State. Honkpo joined the Ohio Army Nationwide Guard in 2015 and proceeds to glance for additional prospects. The Galloway, Ohio resident is contemplating Officer Applicant School and looking into earning a Grasp of Small business Administration.

Although he has not nevertheless deployed throughout his navy occupation, Honkpo explained just one of his motivations for signing up for the U.S. military services was for the option to aid distribute democracy and independence all through the environment.

Honkpo encourages his reduce-enlisted Soldiers to be perfectly-rounded, to be great Soldiers but also to be effective in civilian existence. He tells them to go to college to grow to be “something big” for the reason that that is what his father, who continue to lives in Togo, encouraged him to do.

Honkpo has not been back again to Togo to see his loved ones given that 2015, but his spouse, Kuessiba Tossou, is also a Togolese-American, and the two of them are elevating two boys, Jacob, 4, and Daniel, 1.

He cites Sgt. 1st Class Darian Anderson, an functions noncommissioned officer with 73rd Troop Command, and Sgt. 1st Course Caleb Fennick, a house e-book noncommissioned officer with Joint Pressure Headquarters-Ohio, as mentors.

“They always enthusiastic me to do the job tough,” Honkpo mentioned. “They are really sensible, and they explained I could be a thing like them and gave me all the coaching I essential to be effective.”

A different influence on Honkpo’s life has been his childhood church pal from Togo, lively-responsibility Military Sgt. Kossivi Abalo, an plane powertrain repairer who is currently stationed at Fort Riley, Kansas.

“Kouami wanted to provide the country that helped him additional his instruction and gave him his freedoms,” Abalo said. “The persons of Togo are quite welcoming. It is just that it is quite complicated to take care of your family members there. There are not numerous prospects.”

Abalo and Honkpo have adopted identical paths in coming to the United States and joining the U.S. military services. Abalo reported that Honkpo is like a brother to him, and in 2011 he was the only human being from Togo that Abalo realized when he arrived in the U.S.

“Kouami is a very good man or woman,” Abalo claimed. “Morally, spiritually, anything — he is really great.”

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