Architectural students to help implement Project Okurase

Accra, Jan. 8, GNA - A two-member student delegation from the School of Architecture of the Clemson University, Charleston in the USA, have arrived in the country to help in designing and constructing the Project Okurase in the West Akyem District of the Eastern Region.

The project involves the building of Nkabom Centre with 16 structures on the site at Okurase for training for job creation, formal education for children and foster families for orphaned children as well as a base for single mothers to acquire basic skills in various vocational training. The project is a joint venture of Nkabom Artists and Craftspeople, a local non-governmental Organisation (NGO) in Ghana, Gethsemani Circle of Friends, a non-profit organisation from South Carolina and the Family Services Research Centre of the Medical University of South Carolina, USA. A number of the local people have been engaged to undertake brick laying training and manufacturing of the needed building materials for the project.

The students, Lindsey Waters and Kyle Keaffable told the Ghana News Agency on their arrival in Accra that they were on a 10-day trip to the country to complement the local initiative of the people of Okurase to develop suitable architectural design for the Okurase Centre in which natural materials and sustainable local architecture would be used. Miss Lindsey said they hoped to look at various different types of building materials at the site of the project so as to design appropriate materials for suitable housing for the target groupings. She said they also intended to adopt a design that would be suitable for the chiefs and people of Okurase. Miss Lindsey said on their return to the USA, they would hold sessions with other students of the Clemson Architecture Centre-Charleston to come out with an elaborate design for the Centre.

Mr Keaffable said they had so far held discussions with a number of local architects on Ghanaian building technologies and intended to combine such experiences with theirs to come out with a suitable workmanship.

Dr. Cynthia Cupit Swenson of the Medical University of South Carolina, a co-Director of the Project Okurase, commended organisations that assisted in the successful take-off of the project, particularly the "Link with USA for Africa", for donating 1,000 dollars for the project.

Mr. Samuel Nkrumah Yeboah of the Nkabom Artists and a co- Director of the project, in collaboration with the Nkabom Dance Ensemble in the UK, organised music, dance and drum language workshops and held a forum for school children in Los Angeles to create awareness about the project. He also teamed up with Kobina Boni to launch a film entitled 'Madagascar Escape to Africa II', and performed music and dance shows with the employees of the Dream Works Studio in Los Angeles and at the California State University, Los Angeles to share experience as a way of bridging the gap between the cultures of Ghana and America.

Mr Yeboah thanked the North Devon Respect Festival for donating towards the project as well as other organisations and individuals who in diverse ways supported it.