UNESCO supports GUBA awards

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has pledged its support for this year’s Grow, Unite, Build, Africa (GUBA) 2021 awards aimed to celebrate a centenary of the passage of the gallant Nana Yaa Asantewaa.

The awards, GUBA said, will be held on November 8, 2021 in Accra for the first time in the history of the event.

A solidarity letter to GUBA from UNESCO, reads, “UNESCO would collaborate with your institution (GUBA) towards the event. UNESCO’s work in the area of Culture and Gender, finds convergence in the objectives of GUBA for the awards”.

The letter stated that apart from technical support, UNESCO will also collaborate with GUBA to explore further cooperation in future activities.

Welcoming the support, GUBA Enterprise’s President and CEO, Dentaa Amoateng MBE, lauded the collaboration and said the camaraderie from UNESCO would serve as a major springboard for the success of the awards this year.

“For us at GUBA, such support and collaborations from a powerful organization as UNESCO is a great motivation for us not to fail”, Dentaa Amoateng MBE noted.

This comes after Dentaa Amoateng MBE made a passionate appeal to Ghanaian filmmakers to create beautiful contents on Nana Yaa Asantewaa – the Asante historical figure and late Queen Mother of Ejisu, in ways to help sustain her legacy and goodness she brought to the Asante Kingdom and Ghana at large for current and unborn generations to have a reality of it each time and season.

According to her, the struggles and toils of Yaa Asantewaa should not be left untold adding that, there is a vital point for which the world should be reminded on her hard work, braveness and courageous personality she lived.

Speaking at a press briefing, Dentaa Amoateng said, Yaa Asantewa is an iconic figure for women empowerment that has not been given the needed recognition befitting of her reputation and relevance in modern life.

“We shouldn’t forget our history and how Ghana became Ghana through some people. In a 100 years’ time, do you want your name to be mentioned or celebrated? Yaa Asantewaa is laying peacefully in her grave right now because she has people like us celebrating her. Sometimes you need to be bold, sometimes you need to be confident, sometimes you need to sit back and listen. These are all attributes of Nana Yaa Asantewaa that I want the youth to learn”.

She added, “We believe that the golden stool came from above, and nobody can sit on our golden stool nobody can try and take our golden stool away from us so we went into the palace and said to the Chiefs, who were scared at the time because of King Prempeh taken away. This woman stood and said if you men of Ashanti won’t fight, we the woman will and for us, she led our independence. She is part of that story. If Nana Yaa Asantewaa was born in the UK, USA or outside the jurisdiction of Ghana – she would have been popular and regarded as a great warrior, reason she needs and deserves celebration. Her legacy should be appreciated, and celebrated till eternity”.

2021 marks exactly 100 years of the death of Yaa Asantewaa, the last African woman to lead a major war against colonial powers in 1900, where she played the role of the Commander-in-Chief of the powerful Asante Empire.

These events will observe an important moment in African history, one that is unique to the relations between the Republic of Ghana and the Republic of Seychelles and is expected to host several high-profile personalities from the diaspora.

While celebrating Yaa Asantewaa, the awards will also recognize the contribution of Black women in the diaspora and Africa. The 2021 GUBA Awards will also raise awareness on maternal mortality and call for measures to ensure safe child delivery across the continent. GUBA Enterprise believes that every child, born and unborn, has a great potential and must be given the opportunity to fulfill this potential. The occasion also highlights 2021 being the AU Year of Arts, Culture and Heritage and provides information on the General History of Africa, a UNESCO supported project “unparalleled in its ambition to cover the history of the entire African continent, since the appearance of human beings to contemporary challenges faced by Africans and their Diasporas in the world”.

About the Theme

The year 2021 marks a centenary of the death of Nana Yaa Asantewaa, an Asante Queen Mother and the last African woman to lead a major war against colonial powers in 1900, where she played the role of the Commander-in-Chief of the powerful Asante Empire. After the war, Yaa Asantewaa was captured and taken to Seychelles in exile, where she lived until her demise on October 21, 1921. This year, marks exactly 100 years of her transition.

About GUBA Enterprise

Grow, Unite, Build, Africa (GUBA) Enterprise seeks to promote greater economic, social, and cultural cooperation between Africa and the African diaspora through harnessing the power of the African youth to advance the socio-economic interests of the continent.

About GUBA Awards

The GUBA Awards is a non-profit organisation that focuses on enriching the African community in the Diaspora and in Africa with the aim of empowerment and growth. It is an event dedicated to highlighting and rewarding outstanding achievers. As one of the most professionally executed and entertaining events, the GUBA Awards ceremony attracts a high caliber of African political luminaries as well as business and entrepreneurial personalities.