A youth leader, Dalani Bondoog, has advocated the need to re-enkindle the spirit of communal labour in the communities to help the less privileged, widows and the poor in society.
“Communal labour which included cooperative farming, hunting or building used to be well practised within the BONABOTO (Bolga, Nabdam, Bongo and Tongo) areas in the Upper East Region, but this has stopped”, he stated.
Mr Bondoog from Nangen Yar in Kulpeliga in Talensi, made the remarks during a communal farming for a widow on Tuesday.
According to him, the practice was a means to help people who were ill, widowed, poor people and the less-privileged whom the youth in the community saw that their farms were overgrown with weeds, and so mobilised themselves to assist such people.
Tobey Naoh, another youth leader from Saagat Yar also in Kulpeliga said communal hunting was well organised within Sekoti, Nyogbare, Datuku, Duusi, Gare, Gbane, Sheaga, Shea-Tindong, Namoalug and other communities and it was lively to see how people patronised the hunting expedition.
He said communal fishing was also done, and this included women and the catch was even given to some people who did not catch any fish during the period.
Mr Maclean Boar, the youth leader at Madina (Kulpeliga) said the youth who used to work as co-operators or communal labour now thought they could not work without pay, and this had caused the weaker in society to become poorer because the weaker people used to depend mostly on the youth to work for them for God’s blessings.
He attributed the decline in communal labour to modernity which had contributed to the decline in cooperative spirit, because most of the youth who used to stay in the villages now travel to the South for greener pastures.
Mr Boar appealed to the youth to form cooperatives especially in the rainy season in order to assist the weaker class in Kulpeliga and beyond.
FROM PETER GBAMBILA, KULPELIGA
