How to access a global variable across sub directories within a kernel space?

Is there a way to have a global variable defined in a linux kernel module available across sub directories?Using the EXPORT_SYMBOL makes it available across the current directory. I've tried defining it in a header file and including the header file in the sub directory using "../name_header.h" but it doesn't seem to recognize the variable. In specific, I have one variable in the c file - vport.c (of openvswitch ), I want to access this variable inside a sub directory.