An eco-tourism centre estimated at GH¢30,000 has been inaugurated at the home of Kente, Agotime-Kpetoe in the Adaklu-Anyigbe District in the Volta Region to herald the celebration of the Kente festival or “Agbamevorza” scheduled for today.
The facility, which was provided by a non-governmental organisation, Nature Conservation and Research Centre (NCRC) with funding from the European Union, was one of the four facilities in the country under the Ghana Traditional Textiles Project.
In an inaugural address, the Adaklu-Anyigbe District Chief Executive (DCE), Mr Michael Kobla Adzaho, underscored the essence of the project.
He stated that it would expose the ingenuity of craftsmen and women in the traditional area and create an opportunity for making the craft and provide the forum for players in the industry to take a decision on the craft.
Mr Adzaho said the facility would also offer the opportunity to unearth new talents and skills of individuals towards national development and for the people to appreciate their own efforts towards development. It would also to energise efforts towards the exploitation of the full potential of every member of the community.
“The Kente has a unique ability to evoke powerful emotions and symbolise some of the most fundamental human ideas ever imagined in Africa. Within Ghana, the cloth has the capacity to cut across ethnic divisions and installs a sense of national pride,” Mr Adzaho stated.
He said the traditional Kente textile had gained kingly recognition, especially when weavers had developed motifs in the form of braids as representing honour, bravery and power to express authority.
In an address read on his behalf, the President of NCRC, Mr John Mason, said Ghanaian textiles continued to inspire profound reverence in citizens, Africans and people of African descent in the diaspora and even to people who had no ethnic ties to them.
Mr Mason, however, expressed concern about the threat facing traditional textiles, which included the rapid loss of antique cloths being removed from Ghana without restraint, the loss of indigenous design and memory through lack of written records and decreasing quality and sustainable incomes for weavers with the assurance that the eco-tourism centre was an initiative to reverse those negative trends.
In a welcoming address, the Konor of Agotime, Nene Nuer Keteku III, said the centre was an encouragement of making the Kente heritage project a reality, adding that the best Kente in Ghana came from Kpetoe in the Volta Region.
He said over 500 samples of antique Ewe Kente would be preserved at the centre for posterity.
Nene Keteku said the Kpetoe Heritage Centre would soon present proposals to UNESCO, Ministry of Chieftaincy and Culture and other stakeholders for funding a project to sensitise Kente weaving communities and the collection of antique cloth and documentation of aesthetic Kente materials.
The special guest for the festival today would be the First Lady, Mrs Enerstina Naadu Mills.
According to the festival planning committee, this year’s festival will unveil new products and launch the Kente industry into a higher pedestal for tourism and commercial values.
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