The Ghana Museums and Monuments Board (GMMB) in collaboration with Ricerca e Cooperazione, an Italian NGO, have undertaken a cultural heritage campaign in the Cape Coast Municipality.
The campaign, which is being held on pilot basis in the Central and Western Regions, seeks to encourage participants to identify roles to play in the protection and promotion of the nation's cultural heritage.
A training consultant for Ricerca e Cooperazione, Mr Michael Neequaye, said the campaign will create awareness on cultural heritage properties, their socio-economic value and contribution to the realization of development aspirations.
He said that until the potential value of a cultural heritage property was appreciated by the people it belonged to, it served them no useful economic purpose and therefore its appreciation was critical in assessing its potential economic benefits.
He called for the preservation of cultural heritage such as beliefs, visual and performing arts, traditional practices such as festivals, as well as castles or buildings of unique architecture and objects of archaeological importance.
Mr Neequaye said when these were well preserved, they could serve as tourist attractions, which would eventually create employment opportunities and also help to expand already existing businesses because tourism constituted a major revenue generation source.
Mr Neequaye called on participants and the general public to identify and play their respective roles in maintaining the nation's heritage or else all might be lost in the near future.
For her part, the Director of Education at the GMMB, Nana Nyarkua Ocran, said museums played a pivotal role in cultural heritage development and could also generate revenue.
She called on traditional rulers to uphold ancient traditional values to create a peaceful and harmonious environment and urged the security services to assist in the prevention of illicit trafficking of artefacts and the destruction of heritage projects.
She also called on the youth to help identify the cultural heritage properties and to desist from engaging in sex tourism, drug abuse and child labour.
She called on participants to spread the message across and gave the assurance that the pilot project would be replicated in order to achieve nationwide coverage.
Participants suggested that a curriculum on the subject be developed and taught in schools.
The project, which started in 2007, is expected to end in January 2011 and is being financed by the Italian Government through its Foreign Ministry.
The project targets groups including traditional rulers, students, public servants, the youth and politicians.
Source: Ghana News Agency [October 20, 2010]