GHANA: GREAT VICTORY ACADEMY ENGAGES PUBLIC FIGURES ON PROFLIGATE FUNERALS

GREAT VICTORY ACADEMY ENGAGES PUBLIC FIGURES ON PROFLIGATE FUNERALS

Edward Adeti’s Report, Upper East, Ghana

Mark Woyongo with some members of the club

As child rights activists, agencies and organisations continue to scream against the neglect and hazards that children in northern Ghana suffer as a result wasteful ways of performing funerals, the civic education club of the Great Victory Academy has taken a giant stride to hunt for the opinions of some policy makers and heads of organisations on the menace.

Among the public figures engaged in separate interviews were the Upper East Regional Minister, Mr. Mark Owen Woyongo, and popular advocate for social justice who is also a principal pharmacy technologist, Mr. Alagskomah Asakeya Noble. The President of the Northern Patriots in Research and Advocacy (NORPRA), Mr. Bismarck Adongo Ayorogo, and the Country Director of Afrikids Ghana, Mr. Nicholas Kumah-Cudjoe, were also engaged by the club.

The concerns and questions raised by members of the club dwelt on the adverse effects of engaging minors in funerals, the expensive dimension that funerals in modern northern Ghana are assuming and constitutional policies or byelaws (if there are any) which the assemblies are expected to adopt to address the threat.

It is a common sight in communities in the Upper East Region (where the Great Victory Academy is located) to see children taking part in all-night funeral performances. The worries of such child-centred bodies as the Afrikids Ghana and the Centre for Youth Welfare and Development (CYWD) are that the funeral grounds are no longer only a site for mourning the dead but also a venue for immorality. They are also worried that the youths are beginning to lose their own original funeral culture as the westernised songs, ideas and fashion which are not even related to traditional funerals dominate the funeral scene.

A disturbing number of school-going girls, who become infected or pregnant amid funeral bash, and boys of school-going age, who learn the habit of drinking and smoking from uncontrolled funeral exposure, eventually become school dropouts and street children. Such young people later develop into burdens in society. In a bid to abort the pregnancies the unsafe way, some teenagers bleed to death whilst some suffer irreversible deformities and loss of fertility.

Some relatives of the deceased who apply for funeral loans from banks and moneylenders cannot pay after the funerals are over. Likewise, households that empty their food stores to entertain funeral guests and kill all the animals to pacify the gods in honour of the dead have nothing left with which to feed their children and cater for their education. 

As a result, the children abandon their books in the house and take to the streets where in the cold grip of pressure they resort to social vices to survive the post-funeral hunger. It is against this observation (that society’s social problems flow from home) that the club has taken the step to join child-welfare activists and groups for action to be taken by authorities.

The Regional Minister described extravagant funerals as unnecessary in the north where the people were already impoverished. He stressed that funerals should be performed with moderation whilst such resources go into the care and education of the children. “We need to sensitise and educate the people. We need to educate those who matter to pass the education down to the people. We need to start talking to the chiefs, the Tindanas, the assemblymen and the opinion leaders to preach the change we need. Exposing our children to unnecessary risks is not in the interest of our society. We must protect our children,” he emphasised.  

Mr. Woyongo commended the club for the initiative and urged them to continue to take their education seriously. He bemoaned the growing trend of teenage smoking among basic school pupils and advised students in the region against indiscipline and laziness, saying “Your strength lies in your education. Stay away from cigarettes.”   

Mr. Alagskomah on his part questioned the economic sense in expensive funerals that leave the families poorer and the children more deprived. He called for a ban on spinning and urged the assemblies to act without delay in originating byelaws against such profligate spending.

NORPRA President observed that post-funeral hunger was more severe for affected pupils whose schools were not on the Ghana School Feeding Programme (GSFP) list. Mr. Ayorogo said as long as affected children could not concentrate in class or remain in school due to acute hunger, expensive funerals could rob Ghana of attaining the Millennium Development Goals 1 and 2 which respectively seek to end extreme hunger and poverty and achieve universal primary education by 2015.

Afrikids Ghana boss made it clear that no one was against performance of funerals, but the preference that some people seem to give to the old dead at the comfort of the young living could no longer be tolerated. He lamented the untold pains that children faced in the streets as a result of the attachment of their supposed caregivers to funeral series. Mr. Kumah-Cudjoe joined the Regional Minister in calling for sensitisation and education to address the setback.

The club’s interaction with eminent figures in the region forms part of its action plan on “Abuse of Minors in Expensive Funerals” as the school laces its boots ahead of the 2011 Project Citizen Ghana Regional Showcase in the region. The event is an annual community-based, problem-solving reality show that involves basic and second-cycle schools.