The 2023 edition of PANAFEST and Emancipation Day has been launched in Cape Coast with a call on Africans to unite to help promote their cultural heritage and descent.
According to the PANAFEST board, it is only unity that can help Africans to fight and reclaim their unique culture and also overcome the economic challenges confronting the continent.
Pan-African Festival (PANAFEST) is an important cultural event held in Ghana every two years for Africans and people of African descent to promote understanding, peace, and unity among all Africans and their diaspora.
Also, Emancipation Day commemorates the significant date of 1st August 1834 when slavery and the slave trade were formally abolished in most British Empire.
Slaves who were over 6 years old were ‘designated’ as ‘apprentices’ and legally achieved full emancipation on 01-August 1838.
Speaking at the launch, the board chair, Professor Esi Sutherland Addy said there is a need to bridge the gap between people of African descent both on the continent and in the diaspora.
To her, Africans and especially the youth in Africa must understand the rich cultural heritage of the past and now for a unification to propel prosperity among Africans.
She also explained that “the gap that has grown between people of African descent both on the continent and off the continent, let us remember that there’s nothing that we are going to be able to do in this world for ourselves if we are not doing it together.”
“We are a people who have yet to shine and that is a wonderful thing. There is a lot that we have, but we have to take control of it and we have to make it ours” she continued.
Prof Esi Sutherland, therefore, invites people of African descent to be involved in this year’s PANAFEST and Emancipation celebration to help promote the collective good of the continent.
Speaking on the theme; “re-claiming the African Family: Confronting the past to face the challenges of the 21st century” the Executive Director for PANAFEST Rabbi Kohain Halevi noted that the theme is appropriate as there is the need to regain the lost African identities such as names, languages, and routes.
he explained that about 350,000,000 people of African descent and ascent live outside of the African continent, adding that although they may not be on the African continent they are Africans.
However, the chairman of the occasion and the Omanhen of Oguaa Traditional Area, Osabarima Kwesi Atta II urged all Africans to develop love and observe Ghanaian and for that matter African culture, traditional practices, and customs.
“He said “Africa must unite. And we still are on that path. And that brings us to the threshold of the 31st year of PANAFEST existing.”
Source: Eric Sekyi/ATLFMNEWS
