The Organizers of the
Zuarungu-Moshie Women’s Annual Cultural Festival dubbed DINOMA Festival, have
been challenged to scale-up the celebration of the festival to cover more
communities in the country.
Honorable Matilda
Adombiri, Chairperson of this year’s Festival, observed the essence of
sustainable development efforts at the community level, and called for active
inclusion of women in development programme.
The festival, an annual
celebration aimed at empowering women through the promotion of culture, food
security and food sovereignty, was started by Mr. Samual Zan Akologo, Executive
Secretary of Caritas Ghana in 2005, for the women at Zuarungu-Moshie in the
Upper East Region.
The festival, which Mr.
Akologo single-handedly funded over the years, is to create a platform for
women to celebrate their efforts at promoting community development.
The annual event also
provided space for the women in the community to articulate their views,
challenges, needs and to make advocacy demands to public duty-bearers for
attention. So far, the festival serves as a means of raising awareness of
cultural sustainability of traditional food, through the showcasing of some
local dishes and how they are prepared.
Hon. Adombiri, who
underscored the essence of food security in the Country and in line with the
attainment of the SDGs Goals, stated the relevance of the platform for women to
advance their economic development, education and unity in the rural areas.
She called for the
involvement of young women in the festival in order to learn about these local
dishes and how they are prepared.
To make the Festival
lively, she suggested the programme be turned into an annual home coming food
show, which would be more competitive and held between young and the elderly
women in the communities.
“The venue for the
programme could also be alternated among communities around Zuarungu and its
environs,” she noted.
She however appealed to
Corporate organizations and well-meaning people to support the programme to
motivate the participants to ensure their full participation in attaining the
SDGs through their efforts to ensure food security and development at the
community level.
Hon. Adombiri observed
that the continuous organization of the festival was good, since it would serve
as learning platform for young ladies and the younger generation to learn the
different recipes of the local foods and how to prepare them.
Among some of the diet
prepared at the festival included Gingilima
la bito, Waha, Suma, Gaare, Tikolgo, Tigella, Kinkama gela, Kunkono, Konkogre,
and Suma, Zonliga.
In an address, Mr.
Akologo, expressed the need to harvest the water from the community stream into
a dam for purposes of all-year agricultural production.
He hinted that his family
friends in the Netherlands – the Jacobsons, have shown a lot of interest in the
Zuarungu-Moshie Dam project and stated that technical feasibility surveys have
been completed.
He assured that work
would soon begin once the drawing and costing for the necessary resources for
the project are mobilized, but expressed the hope that the NPP Government’s
policy direction of building dams in communities, would respond timely and to
support the Zuarungu-Moshie’s efforts for a dam.
The programme which is
held on the first Saturday in January every year, brought together politicians
from the Upper East Region, the traditional and opinions leaders in the
Zuarungu Traditional area.
The platform which also
supports the socialization of the participants, offers the community an
opportunity to address development issues in the area, which was echoed in the
theme of the festival: Promoting Sustainable
Development Goals at the community level; ensuring that women are not left
behind.
Speakers, including the
Chief of Zuarungu-Moshie – Naba Adobire and the President of the Community
Women’s Association – Madam Azurema Anongtebsim, touch on the need for
infrastructure development in the areas of education, community development as
well as the need to promote unity.
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