by Admin | Mar 29, 2021 | Scripts
BY: Vivian Dzoboku | voltaonlinegh.com |
Mawuli School has emerged champions of the first-ever Poetry Competition organized for Senior High Schools in the Ho Municipality to commemorate this year’s World Poetry Day.
The competition dubbed “Ehalakasa Senior High School Poetry Slam Competition” was an initiative of Ehalakasa in partnership with Goethe Institut, Ghana Library Authority, and the Ghana Education Service.
A total of five schools, namely, Sokode Senior High Technical School, OLA Senior High School, Mawuli School, Taviefe Senior High, and Mawuko Girls Senior High participated in the competition held at the Ho Municipal Assembly Hall on Friday, March 19, 2021.
After three rounds of keen contest, Mawuli School emerged winner with 76 points, OLA Senior High came second with 73 points and Mawuko Girls secured the third spot with 71 points.
They were presented with cash prizes of Three Hundred Ghana Cedis (GH₵300), Two Hundred Ghana Cedis (GH₵200) and One Hundred Ghana Cedis (GH₵100) respectively, in addition to a plague each and sets of branded T-shirts. All the participating schools were awarded certificates of participation.
UNESCO first adopted 21 March as World Poetry Day during its 30th General Conference in Paris in 1999, with the aim of supporting linguistic diversity through poetic expression and increasing the opportunity for endangered languages to be heard.
The Organizer at Ehalakasa, Yibor Kojo Yibor alias Sir Black, speaking at the event, noted that, the competition did not only showcase the poetry talent of participants but also boosted their confidence level in public speaking. “Poetry as an art helps us to mature, think, expand, and gather information as well as research for information,” he added.
He thus entreated teachers to continue to nurture the interest of students in poetry, noting “this is the only way to project the Ghanaian culture and values”, likewise he called on stakeholders in the region to support the arts industry for what has been started to continue. `
The Head of Library and Information at Goethe Institut Ghana, Mad. Meli Eyram Portia Mansu, said the aim of decentralizing the initiative to the regions has been justified by the high level enthusiasm exhibited by the students during the competition, and called on stakeholders especially GES to sustain the initiative as part of promoting the region and Africa Literature.
The Volta Regional Librarian, Mr. Guy Amarteifio, in an address expressed gratitude to the organizers for pioneering the first ever poetry competition in the region, as he expressed optimism that, the idea to arouse the poetry interest in students and people in the region will not be truncated but rather turned into a daily activity in order to revive and sustain poetry in the region.
He also noted the Ghana Library Authority has launched the Ghana Library App to stimulate reading interest among the public, including school children.
A representative of the Regional Director of Education, Mr. Eric Kofi Gamadeku who also doubled as the chairman at the event in his remarks thanked the organizers of the competition and commended both the teachers and students for preparing in such a short notice and suggested the use of literary devices in the subsequent competitions.
Source: www.voltaonlinegh.com
by Admin | Dec 17, 2019 | Events, Scripts
EnvironWoMenTal Poetry Slam: A Case for the Environment
The National Theatre of Ghana in collaboration with Ehalakasa, will be staging a literati lyrical battle; a Case of the Environment dubbed EnvironWoMenTal Poetry Slam. On Saturday December 21, the sun will rise and shine, the sky will be clear and the midair around the Folks Place of The National Theatre of Ghana in Accra will become fresh and breezy. At about 7pm the stage area will be transformed into something similar to the Bukom Arena for the first and last bout of 2019.
Over the years Ehalakasa has been advancing the course of performance Art in Ghana and beyond. We are very passionate over issues affecting the environment and other related matters. As part of our corporate social responsibility, Ehalakasa, working actively in the creative Art industry; which is now considered the verbal space industry, deem it necessary to use this medium to voice out our position and make a case for the Environment. Poetry slam, is a form of art that allows spoken word artists engage in a 3 round competitive creative lyrical battle.
In this slam Judges will be selected from amongst the audience present with two environmental activists specially invited to oversee and also judge. 10 pre-selected poets will be slamming their own original self-written pieces (case) with or without props. We are glad to be having 2 young dynamic International Guest Performance poets from Abidjan – Côte d’Ivoire, C’Katcha and Adam-Mots to grace the night with us.
Winners of this slam will serve as Green Ambassadors for a year working alongside our partner organizations such as the Church of Climate Change, Plastic Punch and Cultural Crossing to help create more awareness on the need and how to safe guard our environment. We are also happy to announce that the overall winner of this slam will be representing Ghana in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia November 2020 during the 2nd edition of the Africa Cup of Slam Poetry.
Sarah Güsten-Marr, Director of Gallery GM in the UK has offered a conditional prize package of Five Thousand Ghana Cedis (Ghc 5,000) for the first three winners and this will assist them to executing their winning projects.
Saturday December 21st 2019
Folks Place, National Theatre of Ghana
7:00pm Sharp and a Cool 20ghc
For more information, support and partnership, please call +233205043980, +233208251894 or email: ehalakasa@gmail.com
by | Mar 15, 2017 | Events, Scripts
This was my first trip to Ivory Coast.In my mind I wasn’t bothered about an English boy visiting a francophone country, all that mattered to me is that I got there.
I was accompanied by Sir Black who I was to meet Tuesday 28th February,2017 around 9AM. I was late. I arrived at Accra-Madina, Zongo junction to be precise at 12 noon. Talk about making a good impression.
Upon meeting Sir Black, he asked whether I had a yellow fever card. With no as my answer, we had to visit the 37 military hospital to get the yellow fever injection before departure.
I told Sir Black that I hate syringes so he scared me into believing that it was going to be painful but it wasn’t lol.
From there we called the 2 idiots, met at the STC station in Accra, got our tickets and went straight to Busua to lodge at Africa Rainbow hotel.
We were up early the next morning. As we took off to catch the bus at Takoradi, I sketched a short love poem which was an inspiration from our beach visit.
The bus to Ivory Coast was 90 minutes late. Lateness however wasn’t going to spoil my little adventure. In three hours we were at the border about to cross over to Ivory Coast. I had to pay to get an injection for meningitis,then another amount for not having a passport.
A man named Saed picked us up and took us straight to the Goethe Institut. I met a couple of people from different countries there.We stayed in a hotel where I had my own room. There I marveled at Abidjan’s beauty under the night sky. That night I ate my first Ivorian meal, aky3k3 and chicken.
Not long the morning was here. I attended a conference about entrepreneurship. Three ladies during the conference recited their poetry. The first one was Line from Ivory Coast, second was Nira Blessing from Burkina Faso and third was Lydol from Cameroon, they were all great.
From there we went to a school to have The Master Class. It involved poets teaching the students the importance of poetry. I performed a poem called “The Harm” and even though the students didn’t understand what I was saying, they were screaming so much that I had to pause for a very long time before I continued. It was awesome.
That evening I alongside other acts had to perform. We each had fifteen minutes to deliver. Sir Black introduced me and I exploded on the stage. I did 4 poems non stop. I heated the place up even though they didn’t understand my words. The audience were shouting and clapping. Actually they called me the fire man lol. It was a great night to be a poet.
On Friday we went to the theatre to prepare for a show. I performed two poems and nailed it with some robotic dance as I performed. It was crazy. The place was all fire and lit you just won’t understand. I was surprised and confused as to whether it was the speaking that did the magic or my movement. Like Lydol from Cameroon will say, “You are full of surprises because anytime you climb the stage you do something different”.We give thanks to God.
All I will say is that if you get the chance to be involved with slam take it. Don’t do it for winning but you might not know, you can tour the world with poetry. I know some are scared to get involved but just come and play, it even helps you write better more poems. For me I will always slam. I did one collaboration with ma Cameroonian friend called “They Can’t Imagine”, it’s coming out soon watch out.
