Sunyani, Nov. 1, GNA - The Brong-Ahafo Regional Office of the Center for National Culture (CNC) is to partner the Regional Office of the National Youth and Employment Programme to create 200 jobs in weaving, tailoring and hairdressing next year. Mr. Waksman Azaanab, Regional Director of the CNC, said the partnership was in addition to educational programmes the center intended to undertake to promote all the good cultural practices in the region.

He said this at a ceremony to mark the celebration of the Regional Festival of Arts and Culture (REFAC) in Sunyani. Mr Azaanab said Ghana had lost its cultural foundation and that there was the need for all and sundry to come together to revive it.

"On water, we have taboos for the preservation of our water bodies but modernism and the eschatological leanings of our churches are turning these practices overboard", he said.

"A practical example of our culture in development is sanitation", Mr. Azaanab stated, and expressed concern about indiscriminate dumping of refuse "while our technical officials always propound new theories far away from our cultural domain". He said it was in appreciation of the region's contribution to the development of national culture that the Ministry of Chieftaincy and Culture had approved to celebrate the 2012 national festival of Arts and Culture in the Brong-Ahafo Region.

In a speech read for him, Mr. Kwadwo Nyamekye-Marfo, the Brong-Ahafo Regional Minister, appealed to chiefs to rekindle the spirit of oneness and togetherness and place the region at the center of all their actions and thoughts. He said there was the need for chiefs to eschew tendencies that would seek to derail the efforts of the government in "building upon the past to achieve the Better Ghana Agenda". Mr Nyamekye-Marfo said the Brong-Ahafo Region was gradually becoming a tourism hub and boost of the Boabeng-Fiema monkey sanctuary, Kintampo and Fuller water falls, Tano sacred grove, Buoyem caves and bats colony as well as Bono-Manso slave market and Hani archeological site among others.

He said what is now important as a region was how to blend these potentials with local expertise and technology to add value to them to make them more attractive for patronage in order to boost the local economy. Okogyeade Yaw Adusei III, Omanhene of Sankore who presided, appealed to traditional rulers to use culture to change the attitude of the youth especially in the area of dressing.