Accra, Aug. 18, GNA - Rastafarians on Wednesday marked the 118th birth celebration of Pan-Africanist Marcus Garvey with a rain-interrupted musical concert at Akuma Village, near the Arts Centre in Accra.

The show put together by Rastafarian Unity Home and Abroad (RUHA), a nongovernmental organisation (NGO), aimed at championing the positive aspects of Rastafarianism and to raise funds to restore the sight of Walatta Selassehu, a Rastafarian woman from Jamaica. Rastafarians, both young and old, clad in their tricolour apparel of red, gold and green, defied the intermittent rains as they danced to reggae music.

The atmosphere was electrified with an emotionally charged poem titled "Africa on the Move", recited by Sandra Shaw, a Jamaican writer and researcher at the University of California, USA. Aswad Inkrabea, Head of the organising team, urged all four groups of the Rasta family - the 12 Tribes of Israel; the Boboshanti; Nayabingi and the Ethiopian World Federation - to unite and champion the cause of the Rasta family.

Marcus Garvey was born on August 17, 1887 in St. Ann's Bay, Jamaica and died in 1940.

He was well known for organising the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League (UNIA-ACL) to improve the conditions of black peoples internationally. The freedom fighter joined Ghana's First President Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah and some high profile black-conscious leaders to fight for the black person.