Panafest/Emancipation celebrations start Monday

This year’s Panafest/Emancipation Day celebration starts on Monday with wreath-laying ceremonies at the Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Park, George Padmore Library and the W.E.B Dudois Centre in Accra. 

The event coincides with the 50th anniversary of the African Union.

A statement issued by the National Planning Committee said as part of activities planned for the occasion, the Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Creative Arts in collaboration with its agencies and other stakeholders has put together a comprehensive package to commemorate the event.

A pilgrimage to Northern Ghana to visit slave sites in Salaga and other places have also been planned.  

There will also be a symbolic boat ride from Cape Coast Castle, through the “Door of No Return” to the Elmina Castle, a grand durbar of royal pageantry with international representatives celebrating “OAU/AU@50 and Panafest@21” on July 27, at the Cape Coast Victoria Park.

One of the major highlights of this year’s Panafest/Emancipation will be the Reverential Night at the Cape Coast Castle on July 31.

It will be preceded by a candle light procession through the main streets of Cape Coast to the Castle dungeon for a tribute to the ancestors in the courtyard of the Cape Coast Castle ending with the Midnight Proclamation of Emancipation Day, on August 1.

Preceding that will be a mammoth Musical Concert to be organised by the Musicians Union of Ghana (MUSIGA).

The official Emancipation Day celebration which coincides with the 150th anniversary of Emancipation Proclamation in the United States of America will be climaxed with a grand durbar of the chiefs and people of Assin Manso in the Assin South District of the Central Region.

An African Renaissance High Level Dialogue to be attended by renowned Pan African scholars will take place at the Accra International Conference Centre thereafter.

The statement indicated that the Minister of Tourism, Culture and the Creative Arts, Mrs Elizabeth Ofosu-Adjare stated that the celebration has set the tone for Africans both on the continent and beyond to work harder to dismantle all forms of colonialism and neo-colonialism which has stifled Africa’s progress.

Panafest and Emancipation have the joint objectives to unite Africans on the continent and in the diaspora and also to encourage Africans who do not reside on the continent to help develop Africa.