The National Commission on Culture (NCC), has launched the ‘Wear Ghana festival for 2021’ to promote National Identity and encourage patronage of local fabrics.
The festival will take place virtually this year due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Some activities that will take place include; virtual online Fashion show, Spoken word show, teaching the appropriate way of wearing men’s cloth, and media interviews with key stakeholders.
BREAKDOWN OF ACTIVITIES
Mrs. Janet Edna Nyame, Executive Director, NCC, launching the festival, said the ‘Wear Ghana’ initiative was part of the Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture string of activities to promote Ghana, including ‘See Ghana, Feel Ghana, and Eat Ghana’, instituted four years ago.
Mrs. Nyame intimated that the Commission in collaboration with Ghana Textiles Printing Company Limited (GTP), Ghana Tourism Authority (GTA) and National Theater took the initiative of the ‘Wear Ghana festival’ to organize a fashion show in March every year. She said the fashion show aims at “promoting the country’s local textile fabrics, unearth the talents of the young ones, and also create employment for the youth who were into fashion and dressmaking”.
Mrs. Nyame further posited that designers for this year’s celebration were to use local fabrics to design various outfits that can be worn both locally and at any international program outside Ghana for the international communities to appreciate what Ghana has. Speaking of the upcoming fashion show, Mrs. Nyame said :
“This year’s fashion show is not going to be a one-day event but a whole month. Various designers would display their designs with their model’s cat walking on the various social media handles of the Commission”.
Mrs. Janet Edna Nyame.
She further urged all Ghanaians to patronize the colorful local fabrics, adding that she would be grateful if a law was passed to ensure that Ghanaian fabrics, such as the smock, kente, GTP, Woodin, the batik tie and dye, were worn at all state and international functions just to promote the Ghanaian culture and identity.
AMBASSADOR ENCOURAGES GHANAIANS TO WEAR MADE IN GHANA CLOTHES
Nonetheless, Prof. Fredrick Owusu Nyarko, Ambassador for Culture, Ghana and beyond, said they would be visiting institutions to take photographs of individuals who were wearing local prints. He said these pictures would be posted on the Commission’s social media handles for people to vote. Those that emerge winners would have media exposure to encourage more people to wear made-in Ghana products. Professor Nyarko also emphasized that they intend to engage the media, especially radio and television stations to propagate the wear Ghana message to enable more Ghanaians to buy more into it.
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