Legacy of folklore and storytelling talents

The legacy of folklore and storytelling talents was yesterday exhibited by primary and Junior high school pupils in Bolgatanga in the Upper East Region as part of World Story Telling Day.

Four schools, including Bukere Primary and Junior High schools (J.H.S), Awogyiya Primary, and the Abilba J.H.S competed in stories told in Akan, Gurune and English, which was organized by the Ghana Museums and Monuments (GMMB) Board, code-named “Bolga Tells”.

It had the theme: “Dragons and monsters,” and saw community members participating.

Mrs Prisca Yenzie, Manageress of “Bolga Tells,” said the objective was to instill in the youth story telling talents and profiling of stories handed down by their grandparents.

She said the project continued to engage people from communities who still had the skills in storytelling to share with the children who may not have heard any story at all.

Mrs Yenzie said the project further intended to inculcate in the children, family values, and said parents spent chunk of their time out of home leaving the children only to their peers, and expressed the hope that the project by 2020 would instill in families the need to spend quality time with their children.

She mentioned some of the challenges experienced in organizing the event as the lack of funding and thanked the Ghana Denmark cultural fund for supporting the programme to purchase equipment and prizes in the form of books, toys, sweets and writing materials.

She said “Bolga Tells” would widen the scope to search for more story tellers, and called for more financial support from benevolent organizations and individuals to promote the project.

Mr Mahamud Alhassan, Upper East Regional Manager of GMMB who gave an insight to the theme, stressed that even though names of animals were heard of in the past in stories, they mostly left moral lessons for children.

Mr Leslie Kassanga, an official of the Ghana Library Board noted that the contestants had difficulties expressing themselves in the English Language, and urged them to spend time to use the library to learn and improve on their studies.

He also pledged to support the GMMB to document most of the stories in future to prevent them from getting extinct.