One of the activities that marks the Founders Day Holiday on September 21 every year for the past three years is the Ghana Association of Writers (GAW) Book Festival dubbed: GAWBOFEST.
The fourth edition of the festival, however, will be celebrated on Monday, September 22, 2014, at the National Theatre in Accra. It is an all-day affair starting from 8am to 5pm.
GAWBOFEST 2014 will also be the occasion for the consolidation of the GAW Schools outreach Programme, which is a collaborative effort between GAW, the Ghana Education Service, (GES) the Ghana Book Development Council and the Conference of Heads of Assisted Secondary Schools and the Ghana Library Authority.
GAWBOFEST is held under the distinguished patronage of its Chairperson Ama Ata Aidoo. The Guest Speaker for this year is Mrs Cynthia Lumor, Corporate Services Executive of MTN and the Special Guest of Honour is Hon. Dzifa Gomashie, Deputy Minister of Tourism, Culture and Creative Arts.
The purpose of the one-day festival is to bring together authors, publishers, illustrators, booksellers, bloggers, book designers, librarians, teachers, parents, children and readers in an atmosphere of fun to celebrate books, reading, writing, storytelling and creativity.
The emphasis will be on fun because reading is best enjoyed when it is not seen as a chore. In this way, GAW hopes to help rekindle the spirit of reading and writing which is fading from our national consciousness.
GAWBOFEST has everything you can find at other book festivals, plus much, much more. They include: authors reading from their books or talking about their work and book signing, a one-day GAW Bookshop, publishers stands where everyone can buy books and other reading-related products, book readings, poetry slam, storytelling, book exchanges (bring an old book and exchange it for another from someone, perhaps a complete stranger).
There is a children’s area where children will enjoy storytelling, readings, poetry in addition to balloon crafts, drawing, face painting, spelling bee and quiz, writing clinic (bring your own or children’s unpublished poems, short stories, articles, novels for free) and instant evaluation by experts.
A special feature of the festival is the e-reading project. The Ghana Library Authority’s mobile library has been equipped with Internet facilities and provides the opportunity for children and young adults to experience online activities and this will be available at the festival. Famous people from the worlds of culture, entertainment, politics, media, sports, etc will do readings throughout the day.
The open-air theatre at the National Theatre will be the Storytelling Camp for the day. Professional and amateur storytellers will perform there throughout the day. The art of storytelling appears to be dying so this is an opportunity for young and old visitors to experience storytelling as a live drama show.
Underlying the fun and exciting activities of the day is the serious message captured in the theme: ‘Empowering Ghana through Reading.’
Studies have demonstrated a direct link between literacy and economic growth, the enhanced enjoyment of culture, improved health and general social and economic well-being. Unfortunately, the reading culture in Ghana is fast disappearing. People actually boast about not reading to demonstrate that they are busy!
Reading as a social or leisure activity has now become a fringe activity which only a few people do; when people read it is for an immediate purpose such as passing an exam or for religious reasons. Reading for pleasure is almost dead, yet the benefits of such reading are many.
As mentioned above, improved literacy and regular reading can contribute to economic growth; reduce poverty; reduce crime; promote democracy; increase civic engagement and improve health.
In the words of Kowsar P. Chowdhury of World Bank, Literacy and Primary Education Programme, "The spread of literacy has emerged as a major factor in economic and social development. In fact, the linkages between education, health and nutrition are mutual and complementary.
The strong linkages between education, health, nutrition and reduced fertility result in synergies, which can transform vicious cycles of poverty, illiteracy, malnutrition and disease into virtuous cycles of learning and health, equity and sustainable development."
The book festival is one of several initiatives started by GAW to help arrest the decline in reading. Another is the GAW School’s Outreach Programme also undertaken with GAW’s partners. In that programme, the association is setting up literary clubs in all senior high schools under the GES.
The emphasis in that programme is also on reading because there are obvious advantages in young people acquiring the reading habit.
The underlying social and political assumption of GAW’s literacy and reading advocacy is that literacy is a human right and necessary for human development and the development and enjoyment of democracy. Literacy, as a human right, is implied in the right to education and expressed implicitly or explicitly in many international conventions including the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights; 1966: International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; 1966.
Others are the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, 1979: Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). The 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) explicitly recognises literacy not just education.
Reading reduces political tensions in a country and therefore leads to peaceful resolution of conflicts. This is because when people are able to read and understand what they read they are able to come to their own conclusions instead of basing their actions on hearsay. Reading therefore improves democracy, participation and good human relations.
The GAW Book Festival is therefore a call to arms on the reading front. It has been made a fun social day out during the Founders Day holiday so that families can enjoy it together. It is a free event and is open to everyone (committed to promoting a serious issue). Surely, the slogan for the day must be: everyone can read; come and read.
The columnist is the President of the Ghana Association of Writers.
