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Calgary writer nominated for Commonwealth book prize.

Posted on March 29th, 2011

Uzoma Uponi pulled off quite a feat with her first novel. Despite being self-published and a genre novel, her book was nominated for the Commonwealth writers’s prize in the African region.

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The book was published last year. She didn’t win, but the nomination brought her book – ColourBlind – to public attention. And it helped sell a few copies. Uzoma Uponi came to Canada from Nigeria in 2002. After living in Toronto and then Fort MacMurray, she moved to Calgary with her family in 2008. She has managed to launch a writing career and raise four children and work fulltime! The Link`s Frank Rackow met her recently.

 

 

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Ghana’s Crusading Chameleon

Posted on March 7th, 2011

Anas Aremeyaw Anas

Anas Aremeyaw Anas can’t afford the luxury of having his picture being taken. As an undercover investigative journalist, Anas has used disguises ranging from a priest’s garb to posing as a mental patient. He has exposed corruption in the cocoa exporting trade, maltreatment of children at an orphanage in Accra and he has cracked a human smuggling ring.

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His work has earned Anas plenty of awards both in Ghana and internationally. When US president Barack Obama visited Ghana in 2009, he acknowledged Anas as a crusading reporter who is “risking his life to report the truth.”

Anas Aremeyaw Anas does not want me to take his picture. The 32-year-old journalist at Accra’s New Crusading Guide newspaper has driven across Accra to meet me on a Sunday night at the private residence where I am staying. That’s no easy task in this sprawling city, even on a Sunday. So, he is eager to talk to me, just not to have his picture taken.

And that is perfectly understandable. As an undercover investigative journalist, Anas has used disguises ranging from a priest’s garb to posing as a mental patient. He has exposed corruption in the cocoa exporting trade, maltreatment of children at an orphanage in Accra and he has cracked a human smuggling ring. Though he writes for a newspaper, he films most of his investigations and the results can be viewed on-line.

To continue going undercover, however, he must keep his image concealed. As well, he is concerned about retaliation from some of the people he has exposed.

His work has earned Anas plenty of awards both in Ghana and internationally. When US president Barack Obama visited Ghana in 2009, he acknowledged Anas as a crusading reporter who is “risking his life to report the truth.”

Our conversation ranged from the state of journalism in Ghana to the ethics of undercover investigation, his personal security and the effects on his journalism of a private investigation sideline he maintains.

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Edmonton nurse organizes to help hospital in Ghana.

Posted on February 24th, 2011

Frank Rackow talks to Dr. Simon Osei-Frimpong- Director of medicine at the Nana Hemang Denkyi Hospital in Dixcove, Ghana.

A nurse from the western Canadian city of Edmonton is working to get running water to a remote hospital in West Africa. Earlier this year, Calgary correspondent Frank Rackow visited the hospital and he has the story of how Michelle Labossiere is doing this.

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An African Chief from small-town Saskatchewan

Posted on January 14th, 2011

 

Rod McLaren

In 1971, Saskatchewan native Rod McLaren took a two-year contract with CUSO (then Canadian University Service Overseas) to teach in Ghana’s western region.

He left Ghana with mixed feelings after his contract ended and returned several years later to marry a woman with whom he had a relationship, Comfort Yaa Sewaa Amaoako. The couple then moved to Canada and raised three children in small-town Saskatchewan, on Canada’s prairies.

They made regular visits to Ghana and during one visit in the mid-90s, Rod and Comfort each noticed that the economic fortunes of the country were improving and they started talking about spending more time in Comfort’s homeland.In 1999, they purchased land in the beach resort community of Busua, west of the city of Takoradi.Even at that point, they did not envision fulltime residence in Ghana.

But the move became a reality in 2001. They built a small resort hotel – the African Rainbow, designed by their son, Akwasi, an architect who studied at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada.To their surprise  –  and great pleasure – Rod and Comfort’s three children decided to follow their parents to Africa.

Their son Akwasi is building an eco-lodge down the coast from his parents’ village, while Sewaa manages the African Rainbow resort. The youngest child,  Tia, completed her university studies in Ghana and now lives in Zanzibar.In 2004, Rod was installed as a the Nkosuhene (chief responsible for development) of the Edubiase Traditional Area in the Ashanti region. He was given the name Nana Akwasi Amoako Agyeman II.

The next year, Rod and Comfort also established  the Africa Sankofa Fund to support a daycare and health facilities in the town of New Edubiase.His duties as a chief of the Ashanti people include attending council meetings, ceremonies and dispute hearings. But his real passion is promoting the arts in western Ghana. From the time it opened, the African Rainbow has featured both traditional and popular music at the rooftop bar.

While there, I had the chance to perform with Rod’s daughter Sewaa, her partner Bill and the United African Spirit band.Comfort (left) and Rod McLaren participate in the cocoa harvest festivities in New Edubiase in Ghana`s western region.”

Rod has also written several books of poetry and he writes a blog about the arts and issues affecting Ghana, particularly the western region, where he lives.  These days his concerns include the presence of foreign trawlers vacuuming up fish stocks off Ghana’s coast and the possible impact of the oil industry on the western region.

The first oil is slated to be pumped from an offshore well near Cape Three points not far from Busua. Like many in Ghana, the McLarens are hoping that oil revenues will be a force for positive development in the country and not a curse leading to corruption and violence – the fate of many oil-producing African nations.

 

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While increasing numbers of newcomers are arriving in Canada from Africa, Rod McLaren’s journey has taken him the other direction.

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Ghana’s credit unions – the Canadian connection.

Posted on January 13th, 2011

 

Monica Aidoo, manager of the Progressive Women`s Cooperative Credit Union in Cape Coast, Ghana

To reach the offices of the Progressive Women`s Cooperative Credit Union, you climb the stairs above a small market in downtown Cape Coast. Inside, there is a waiting area with wooden chairs and a counter staffed by two employees. A typical small business? Not really.

The Progressive women`s credit union was established in 1994 by twenty five women in Cape Coast, the capital of Ghana`s Central region. Sixteen years later, the credit union counts 2500 members, one third of whom are men.

The credit union is a cooperative, not-for-profit business that allows its members to amass savings, take out loans and receive financial services.

Monica Aidoo manages the credit union and its staff of seven. She says the members of the credit union are often low-income, self-employed people who would not qualify for credit at commercial banks. As well, she says the credit union can offer its members loans at a lower rate of interest, because the `profits` from its operations are reinvested in the loan fund.

Read more…

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Saving Ghana’s rainforest?

Posted on January 12th, 2011

 

The forest canopy walkway at Kakum National park.

Since its construction in 1996, the canopy walkway in Kakum National Park has become Ghana’s single biggest tourist attraction. But as Frank Rackow reports, that walkway has a Canadian connection.

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Paul Ankomah has fond memories of Canadian John Kelson. The two men worked together in the mid 1990s to build the canopy walkway in Ghana’s Kakum National Park. Mr. Kelson was one of the designers of the walkway and he has gone on to make a career of building elevated walkways around the world.

Kakum National Park is where Mr. Ankomah works as the assistant site manager for Ghana Heritage Conservation Trust.

Read more…

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The Ghanadians – the lessons learned.

Posted on January 11th, 2011

Canadians Becky Mensah and Karen Skelton at the Philip Quaque Girls School in Cape Coast, Ghana.

It was the moment at which all the hassle and frustration of the preceeding ten days seemed to melt away.

In bright sunshine on Wednesday, November 24th,  Canadians Karen Skelton and Becky Mensah from Calgary, Alberta were greeted like rock stars by hordes of screaming children at the Philip Quaque girls school in central Cape Coast.

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The Ghanadians

Posted on January 10th, 2011

Becky Mensah and Karen Skelton meeting with Osabarimba Kwesi Atta 11, the King of Cape Coast.

Becky Mensah and Karen Skelton call themselves the Ghanadians. Becky was born in Ghana and has made her home in Canada for 32 years. She and Karen have known one another for 15 years in Calgary. Frank Rackow brings us the story of their journey to Ghana to set up a library in Cape Coast.

Becky Mensah and Karen Skelton call themselves the Ghanadians. Becky was born in Ghana and has made her home in Canada for 32 years. She and Karen have known one another for 15 years in Calgary.

In 2006, Becky made her first journey home to Ghana in more than 20 years. It was a sad occasion – her father’s funeral. While in Cape Coast, Becky became aware of the poor state of the Philip Quaque Boys and Girls school. Run by the Anglican church, the school is Ghana’s oldest such institution and Becky had attended the school as a young girl. But it had fallen into a state of advanced disrepair. The school had also seen Ghana’s elite pass through its doors. Former students include the King of Cape Coast and former UN chief Kofi Annan.
 
Back in Canada, determined to do something to aid the school, Becky turned to her friend Karen. They raised funds to help repair the school building and returned in 2007 with a crew of volunteers. On the first trip to Ghana, they repaired the roof of the school, restored the bathrooms and set up some perimeter fencing.
 
Once that was done , Becky turned her attention to providing for the long-term needs of the school.  As she told me, her daughter owns more books than there are in the entire school library.
 
So began the next stage of the project, building a library for the school. Back in Canada, Becky and Karen mobilized their networks and collected enough books, clothing and school supplies to fill a shipping container.  With financial and organisational help from former Calgary mayor, Dave Bronconnier,  they paid  to ship the container to Ghana earlier this year..
 
In June of 2010, Becky and Karen travelled to Ghana with the expectation of  unloading the container and setting up the library. The King of Cape Coast donated space in the castle (infamous as the point of departure for thousands of slaves) to house the library. Becky Mensah’s plan for the library is to create a resource for the school that will also generate some income from commercial users and the wider community. It is to be used as a meeting place, internet site and public lending library.
 
It was not to be. The container had been sent to the wrong port – Tema near the capital Accra, rather than Takoradi, closer to Cape Coast. The two women spent a frustrating ten days attempting to get the container released, but eventually had to return to Canada without having accomplished what they set out to do.
 
It was at that point that I met Karen and Becky and started to tell their story. What intrigued me especially was that Becky was one of several Ghanaians I had met in Canada who were undertaking direct, grassroots aid projects in their country of origin. I wanted to know if they were meeting a true need in their homelands and how equipped they were to navigate the system in Ghana after years of absence.
 
Over the next two week, I will be documenting Becky and  Karen’s efforts here on the Link to Africa website and through our on-air programming.  I will also be telling a variety of other stories of Canada’s involvement with this African nation.
 

Next: Unloading the container in the port of Tema?.

Also: watch here for my interview with award-winning and sometimes controversial investigative journalist Ana Arameyaw Anas.

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