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Seminar on Marriage and Family in Kumasi, Ghana
Written by Helen M. Osei, Secretary General, UPF-Ghana
Saturday, December 3, 2011
Kumasi, Ghana - A seminar on marriage and family was scheduled for December 3 in Kumasi in south-central Ghana's Ashanti region. A local coordinator was assigned to organize everything, and the Hotel De Kingsway in the center of the city was booked for the event.
On arrival in Kumasi on December 2, the Coordinator was unavailable and the hotel had been booked for another event by other group. The banner, program, and all materials for the venue had been prepared. A guest house was found for lodging, but no hotel or workshop venue was available in less than 24 hours notice. Two newly appointed Ambassadors for Peace who just completed a workshop in Accra were consulted and one, a Christian minister, offered his chapel for the occasion.
The challenge that followed was to contact all invitees and inform them about the change of venue. The distance from the original venue to the chapel was quite far, and those who could be contacted by phone came to the new location, but those who could not be reached made their way to the Hotel De Kingsway and went back home because they were not prepared to travel that far to the new venue.
The program began at 10:00 am and lasted till 2:00 pm. Those in attendance were heads of NGOs, youth organizers, high school teachers, and religious leaders from both Christian and Muslim religions. Altogether there were 21 persons.
Two resource persons were drawn from the Family Federation for World Peace in Accra: Rev. Itia Tegha, the National Leader, and Pastor Raymond Danquah, the Headquarters Pastor.
After a PowerPoint presentation on UPF Recent Highlights by the Secretary General, the two resource persons took turns and made presentations on “The Benefits of Marriage” and “Marriage and Family as Instruments of Peace.”
This content comes as a new revelation to any audience. At the end of the presentations, the audience was filled with new life and there was a great applause. During the general discussion, almost everybody stood to ask a similar question: "Why are you keeping such materials to yourselves when society is falling apart?" They requested that the UPF National Chapter create more time to visit Kumasi regularly in order to extend this family education to the larger society.
The Chairman of the occasion, Alhaji Haruna Ahmad, Regional Chairman of the Islamic Council and an Ambassador for Peace since 2009, expressed his immense gratitude to UPF for its work promoting interreligious harmony. He pleaded with UPF to organize regular workshops in Kumasi, adding that it is only through education that people's minds can be turned toward goodness. Alhaji Ahmad requested the National Chapter to form an organized body to manage the UPF chapter in Kumasi; and when that organized body is formed, he added, everybody should contribute both cash and in-kind donations to support that chapter. He advised people not to think of what they will gain from the organization but rather how to help the organization stand on its feet. “Accountability and transparency,” he said, “must be practiced at all cost.”
Soon after Alhaji Ahmad’s remarks, the workshop was brought to a close and an Interim Committee was put in place to coordinate the Ambassador for Peace work in Kumasi. They were promised a regular visit until a National Ambassador for Peace network is properly put in place.
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