UNESCO partners 'Engage Now Africa and NFED to celebrate 'International Literacy Day' in the Ashanti Region
The initiative behind the celebration was towards literacy as an empowerment tool for people to participate fully in societal activities for national development.
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‘Engage Now Africa’ and ‘Non-Formal Education Division’ (NFED), together with United Nation Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO Africa) joined hands to celebrate the ‘International Literacy Day’ in the Ashanti Region yesterday, September 10 2019.
The initiative behind the celebration of the ‘International Literacy Day’ was towards literacy as an empowerment tool for people to participate fully in societal activities for national development. The program was honored in the Volta Region last year and per the Asantehene’s support and attentiveness towards education, he deemed it a privilege for the schedule to be introduced in Kumasi to edify residents on its needfulness.
The theme for this year’s; “Literacy and Multilingualism” was hosted at the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT) Hall and according to the Country Director of Engage Africa, Cecilia Amankwa, the idea was chosen to enlighten participants on the crucial role language play in the life of man which serves as repository unique individual identity of culture. Addressing the gathering, she outlined that language is the penultimate element of every culture that binds people together all over the world therefore there was a need for Ghana to unite and protect her language and properly hand them to successive generations.
Ghana has lots of it languages disappearing in the modern age due to how technology is bridging the gap with the western world. As a result of that, schools in Ghana have been forced to drop the local language and instill foreign language in students due to the structures of the socio-economic world. Statistics by UNESCO shows that 7,000 languages are spoken worldwide among 370 million indigenous people and 2,680 languages have been discovered to be in danger
Miss Cecilia disclosed that the fading of some speeches have gained voice and face thereby prompting the United Nation to declare 2019 as the year of indigenous languages for the protection of speakers of them to appreciate their world’s rich cultural diversity.
“Engage Now Africa is ever prepared to support this important drive, to promote, protect and project the speaking of our indigenous languages,” she said.
She further said in her speech that the promotion of Ashanti’s local language through Kumawood movies played a great role to preserve the value of the speech therefore it was needful to make it official by means of reading and the inclusion of skills, which is a tool capable of liberating one from poverty.
“Literacy empowers a person and a nation. Education alone cannot relieve an individual from poverty but the ability of the individual to take control and contribute her quota to national development will flow from doing a decent job,” she added.
The Ashanti Regional Minister, Hon. Simon Osei Mensah advised that deserting the local language is an act of abandoning the culture of one’s ethnicity, which has brought about the infusion of unusual acts in the Ghanaian society.
“We have adapted the English as our language for that matter, we are forced to adapt to certain lifestyle of the western world which is sometimes abominable in our society. How many of us can kiss a woman in front of his parents? No, it is detestable in our trend but a way of life to the whites,” he educated.
He encouraged Ghanaians to preserve and hold in high esteem the various local languages even though the English has been adopted for the purpose of trade with advance nations.
“Ga people must stick with their language, Asante’s should speak the Twi whiles Dagbani, Frafra and the other tribes must be glued to their language,” he advised.
The Principal Program Officer of UNESCO, Mr. Appolonius Asare also cautioned Ghanaians to maintain and uphold the local language in every area of activity and quit staying abreast with the Western speech. He revealed that UNESCO is much interested that the various ethnic groups in the world get used to their language in order to promote culture.
“The language is what defines the culture. Failure to speak is failure to exhibit our culture to the Western world and know the mysteries behind it invention,” he ended.
Present at the ceremony was a representative of the Director of the Ghana Education Service, NGO's in Literacy, Chiefs, Regional Director, National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO), Regional Commanderof the Ghana Police Service and other distinguished leaders.
