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•Nii Kwaobotwe II, Dzasetse of Teshie giving a brief history of how the homowo started. Picture: BENEDICT OBUOBI
•Nii Kwaobotwe II, Dzasetse of Teshie giving a brief history of how the homowo started. Picture: BENEDICT OBUOBI

Teshie launches rebranded Homowo

The people of Teshie in Accra, have held a ceremony in the town to launch a rebranded version of their annual Homowo Festival expected to be celebrated in August this year.

Homowo is celebrated by the Ga people to commemorate their relief from hunger on their arrival in the Gold Coast after a sojourn in Ille Ife in Nigeria many centuries ago.

Explaining why the festival was being rebranded, the General Manager (GM) of Orange Communication Limited (OCL), the company in charge of this year’s Homowo celebration of the people of Teshie, Mr Ebenezer Annang, said the image of the festival in Teshie was being changed to make it more attractive, modern and relevant to contemporary times, as well as create a more jubilant occasion to attract local and international observers.

“There would be so much culture on display from which people can learn about the history of the Ga-Dangme people,” he said.

New activities

Activities added to change the face of this year’s festival would include; a health walk and screening, awards nights, musical show and sports gala, in addition to the old activities like street carnivals and the purification rights for twins.

Mr Annang said the occasion would also serve as a platform for promoting and selling products and services produced in Teshie, as a means of raising revenue for the town’s development.

“The festival is expected to create an exciting setting for economic activities where sellers of various products can converge to do business,” he said.

He said this year’s festival programme would be spiced up with colour and interesting activities that would go a long way to make the celebration, which will be spread over one month, a memorable one.

The general manager expressed his gratitude to the Teshie Traditional Council for appointing his outfit to handle the celebration and pledged the commitment and support of his team to make the celebration a success.

Background

A member of the planning committee, Nii Kwaobotwe II, gave a brief history of both the festival and the people of Teshie. He said Homowo was a period of merrymaking following an extended period of draught which the Ga-Dangme people had to face during their long journey to their present settlement.

“Homowo means hooting at hunger and is likened to the Passover Feast of the Hebrews,” he said.

Nii Kwaobotwe said the festive occasion was also an occasion to take stock of the past in order to chart a new path into the future, as well as a setting for restoring relations among feuding people or groups.

“With the kinds of help and other support that we have, it is my expectation that this year’s Homowo celebration would be exceptional,” he said.

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