Kumasi, Jan 13, GNA - Mr Festus Boadi-Suadwa, Deputy Ashanti Regional Director of Education, has urged the youth to let the heroic deeds and achievement of Nana Yaa Asantewaa, serve as a rallying ground to seek emancipation from physical, mental, psychological and all other forms of injustice in society.
He said Nana Yaa Asantewaa was an African woman, who was not only a queenmother, but a woman of exceptional courage, determination and a visionary, who set a pace for emancipation of exploitations and domineering of all forms.
Mr Boadi-Suadwa made the call in an interview with the Ghana News Agency in Kumasi on Thursday after the official launch of the second edition of the Yaa Asantewaa Festival at the Centre for National Culture (CNC). The festival, which is being organised by the CNC under the auspices of the Golden Stool Heritage Foundation of the Manhyia Palace, will be held from August 1-5 in Kumasi.
Nana Yaa Asantewaa, queenmother of Ejisu is acclaimed a legendary, who led an army of 20,000 to resist attempts by the British Army to capture the Golden Stool in 1900.
Mr Boadi-Suadwa said people of this generation, especially the youth, should see Nana Yaa Asantewaa as a symbol of hope, bravery and total patriotism to one's nation. Her leadership role, he said, should also empower and inform all those being exploited that, their emancipation lied in their own efforts.
Mr Boadi-Suadwa stated that the institutionalisation of a festival in her honour would inform and educate generations about the significant historical and cultural contributions of the heroic deeds and struggles of Nana Yaa Asantewaa to world resistant history. He hoped the festival would enhance Ghana's tourism development and in so doing, add another international event to the tourism calendar of the country.
The Deputy Director appealed to all students and pupils in the region to patronise all the events in the festival to enable them have a true insight into the achievements of the legendary queenmother.
