Weeks 2 and 3 - RYSE in Ghana
Hello family!
Weeks 2+3 of our Study Visit to Ghana - on the SANKOFANUNANSA Planet Repairs Action Learning Internationalist Grounding trip - have been emotive, full on and overall a complete honour to be welcomed by the Ewe people and especially into Asogli state for their Te Zā!
We’re sharing here some of our activities and snippets of learning for you all to follow along while we’re here - hopefully it sparks your curiosity. As we begin, we’d like to ask you to pause and recall the image of Africa you were taught growing up, and hold it in your mind while you read.
We’re too busy (and still taking things in) to put out any more detailed reflections so save your questions for our 21st October event (details on our events page :)) and stay tuned for more! We hope autumn is arriving well in the valleys at home❤️
This middle section of our Ghana Study Trip has been spent in Ho, the capital of the Volta Region, where we have been incredibly welcomed. It's a beautiful place covered in greenery, with rolling hills and rivers - and home to the Asogli community of the Ewe people of the wider Gbewto-speaking people. While in some ways (rural town, valleys, organic farming) Ho feels a little like Stroud, it has been a big learning experience for us.
We’ve met with some more of the organisers here, like Obie and Pamela, who are also involved organising structures a creating GGECs (Glocal Green Eco Clubs) and COSOLLs (COmmunity Space Of Lifelong Learning). Their work on community education vehicles has been one of the focuses of our visit in the area.
The other main focus has been on getting to know the indigenous Asogli Community, mainly through participation in the Asogli Te Zā - a traditional festival celebrating the yam harvest. It’s a jam-packed month including rituals and ceremonies, huge carnivals and dancing, and political engagements. This programme of events is a powerful way this community holds onto its traditional values and culture in the face of colonial miseducation, imposed borders and neo-colonial economy. It’s also a forum for working out how the community wants to pave the way into the future, adapting to today’s challenges and building stronger sovereignty for themselves and Afrika as a whole.
On our first full day we went to visit the local cultural chief, Togbe (Chief) Deti, to be introduced and welcomed to Ho.
He generously brought us into his family while we are here, giving us his blessing and protection. At various points during the week we have joined him at engagements and have had incredible conversations with him about community traditions, local knowledge, issues with the Christian church, and corruption in the UK!
The next day we had the honour of attending the Teyuyru carnival and walking just behind the traditional warriors who protect the carnival, singing their traditional songs at the front of the parade. We witnessed the opening libations and walked through town, amongs the thousands of people crowding the streets to celebrate the day. Some of us got to watch the parade go by, and waited two hours before seeing the end of the crowd! We also participated in conversations about the mixture of modern and traditional elements; where that is beneficial, where it is harmonious and where it is destructive.
At the earliest possible moment we were formally welcomed by Togbe Afede, the paramount chief (Agbogbomefia) of the whole Asogli State. We are honoured to be his guests for the week, and he has greeted us with open arms. He’s a very interesting man, who’s attempting to use his role to organise the Asogli community for positive change. We’ve been learning a lot from getting to know him and the role he holds in the community, which is unlike anything we have at home.
We also learnt about Borborbor - the traditional dance of this area - both visiting the national competition and a local shindig where we learnt some steps and joined in!
During the weekdays when the Te Zā schedule was quieter, we took the time to visit a couple of local schools, a university and a COSOLL (Community Space Of Lifelong Learning) that local organisers have been working with.
On our visit to Peki Senior High School, we (RYSE and the wider Sankofanunansa team) spoke with a thousand students about people’s history and the role of young people in creating change. Robin told them the story of the Stroud Water Riots and our commemorative event last year when we threw the Mill Owner in the Canal!
We also went up in the mountains to Avatime, where we visited Avatime senior high school and met with a group of students involved in the GGEC initiative. We had a little workshop session exploring the issues they face and what can be done! We also learnt about key ancestors together, and how they show us the need for North to South solidarity.
In both these communities we met with the local chief to pay our respects and explain our intentions for visiting their community (as is traditional), and one of them even talked about Extinction Rebellion during an interaction about the climate crisis and environmental justice.
On the day we visited Avatime we also drove further up the hill to Avatime Amodzofe - the highest human settlement in Ghana. Here we met with the local COSOLL (COmmunity Space Of Lifelong Learning) who run education through football, seamstressing and media. We learnt about each other's work and discussed how to challenge older generations constructively!
Another stop was Ho Technical University where we had a tour around campus and learnt a lot from a researcher making innovations in biogas production, and organic pesticides and fertilisers. He’s attempting to scale his work, to create more jobs for young people in Ghana, if he can get access to the resources to do so. It’s a great example of planet repairs entrepreneurship.
Because we attended several formal events this week as part of the Asogli Te Zā, we had the privilege of getting some stunning clothes made for us by the Xomawuntifafase Fashion and Accessories Cooperative of Peki.
This cooperative is working to confront youth unemployment in their community by creating a visible pathway for youth to train in and become fashion designers and sewists. The cooperative trains them and gives them a way into the market, and brings them into an organisation that is run by and for the community.
One of the inspiring things we learnt from a member of the coop was his observation that fashion is an extension of nature. Just as the first clothing came from nature in the form of palm leaves and other readily accessible natural materials, everything we wear still ultimately comes from nature today, and so is an expression of nature, through us.
The formal events in question were the Ewe Chief’s Summit, the State Dinner and Grand Durbar, which closed the Te Zã for the year.
The Summit of Ewe Chiefs brought together many of the Ewe chiefs from across Ghana, Togo and Benin to ground together and discuss politics. Much of it was in Ewe, and the clear unity of these people brought the violence and stupidity of colonial borders that separate them into sharp contrast. They share a language, history and culture that goes back many hundreds of years, but are divided across three separate countries invented by Europe in 1885 at the Berlin Conference.
One of the main topics of discussion was the plan to reorganise Asogli state to improve the conditions of the people, and increase community power. It is a dual power strategy that seeks to realise the true promise of the Ghanaian constitution which enshrined the need for traditional and municipal authorities to play key role in governance. Sadly this often hasn’t materialised with traditional leadership being marginalised to only a ceremonial role by the municipal government. We’re hoping that this reorganisation builds the community structures necessary for the chief to be seen as a complimentary political power in their area. The summit is also used to discuss the African Traditional Leadership Institute (which was announced at the Summit last year) which is aiming to build unity among chiefs to support more Pan-Afrikan indigenous leadership across the continent. We also heard from people such as an ambassador from Suriname, who spoke powerfully about the role of Afrikan diaspora across the world.
The final event of the Asogli Te Zā was the Grand Durbar - which lives up to the grandness of the name. A great antidote to the Red Nose Day narratives of Africa, it displayed the splendour of various indigenous communities from across Ghana and brought together dancing, political speeches and a parade. Watching their entrances was truly spectacular, as each entered with their retinue, wearing full regalia, some on horses, others bringing many baskets of gifts.
There was a big crowd, pulling many corners of modern Ghana together, from hawkers to the chief of staff of the Republic, traditional chiefs to German missionaries, children, elders and all those in between. The contradictions that the people face, the strength of the past they carry with them and the different forces pulling them into the future were all on display.
The racist propaganda of the UK tells us that Afrika is mainly a place ‘lacking’ - lacking in food, opportunity, history, political importance, strength… And many we’ve spoken to here have entirely glamorised stories of Europe taught to them. This propaganda serves to disconnect us, to maintain the violent structures that have destroyed our world for generations. Let us learn each other's real strengths and struggles so we can walk in step along the road to planet repairs and co-liberation!
Like we said above, fuller reflections and analysis and next steps will follow as the work continues. Now we travel back to the MAYCESC for a week or so, for meetings, coworking and practical tasks before we fly home…
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