Regional News of Tuesday, 6 March 2007

Source: s. a. achanso (u.k.)

Kudos Greater Accra Zongo Communities

I wish to say kudos to the leadership of the Greater Accra Zongo Communities and its entirety for their visionary initiative and successful execution of a celebration for the peoples of the Zongo Communities within the Greater Accra Region this year.

I was particularly gratified by the colourful display of cultural diversity. This indeed shows the hidden potentials of the Zongo Communities which if well harnessed can tremendously transform the Communities in particular and add to the nation's rich cultural heritage.

Regretably, the Zongo Communities have been perceived as heaven for various negative tendencies including illiteracy, violence, criminal activities, ghettos, poor environmental sanitation you name it. This initiative, therefore, is a proof that despite such negative perception of the Zongo Communities, these communities after all have a lot of potentials for the socio-cultural development the communities in particular and the nation as a whole and this is just the tip of the ice burg my conscience tells me.

What I, However, found missing in the organization is the lack of representations of other groups of people generally domicile in these communities. The Zongo communities have normally been in the south as settlements for people of northern extraction and foreigners from neighbouring African countries - I stand to corrected. There are, however, other groups of people from regions in the south who reside in these communities whose numbers are quite significant. It is, therefore, important that the community leaders rope them into such activities since their actions or otherwise greatly affect the communities.

All said and done, the Zongo community leaders and its entirety need kudos for such a brilliant initiative. It is hoped that this will be sustained and possibly improved upon since as indicated above, the general perceptions of these communities leave much to be desired.

S. A. Achanso (U.K.) saachanso@yahoo.co.uk