The Ghana Tourism Authority (GTA) yesterday launched the Emancipation Day 2020 celebration and “Do Ghana” Travel Festival in Accra.
The programme which was organised under the auspices of Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture was in collaboration with the Graphic Communications Group Limited (GCGL).
The Emancipation Day 2020 celebration which was launched virtually via Zoom was on the theme, “Our Heritage, Our Strength; Leveraging Our Resilience, Black Lives Matters.”
Speaking at the launch, Chief Executive Officer of GTA, Akwasi Agyeman, said this year’s event was aimed at “rekindling the flame of unity among blacks and highlight the inter-connected nature of their struggles here on the mother continent and in Europe and America.”
He said the celebration would open to see domestic arrivals performing insight from various industries and interact with each other in a meaningful way.
The Director of Marketing and Sales of the GCGL, Mr Franklin Sowa explained that, the “Do Ghana” Travel Festival was intended to be a follow up to the ‘Year of Return’ which opened Ghana up to Africans in the Diaspora.
He said the event was also to afford businesses in the tourism and food industry the opportunity to boost business and recover after being hit by the COVID-19.
Mr Sowa was optimistic that the initiative would contribute substantially to the economy of Ghana and would help encourage industries to promote made in Ghana products.
“We believe that together we would revive our sector and create a new acceptance in domestic tourism and travel to improve our tourism system in the country,” he added.
Dr Diblim Iddi Barri, Deputy Minister of Tourism, Arts and Culture on his part called on Ghanaians to rekindle their commitment to the total emancipation and progress of Africa.
“Emancipation Day should remind us once again that, the African family has been separated and that the different factions of the family both on the mother continent and in the Diaspora have suffered from this brutal and traumatic separation.”
“The persistent police brutalities and the criminalisation of the judicial system against African American males and the recent killing of George Floyd, an African American, all point to an enduring, pervasive and bigoted world view fuelled by feelings of racial superiority among sections of the Caucasian population,” he added.
He, therefore, called for a shared heritage as we use the vehicle of tourism and the creative arts to strengthen the bonds of brotherhood between our brothers and sisters in the Diaspora.
BY VIVIAN ARTHUR AND GLORIA N. MINTAH
