The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has pledged its support for this year’s Grow, Unite, Build, Africa (GUBA) 2021 awards aimed to celebrate a centenary of the passage of the gallant Nana Yaa Asantewaa.
The awards, GUBA said, will be held on November 8, 2021 in Accra for the first time in the history of the event.
A solidarity letter to GUBA from UNESCO, reads, “UNESCO would collaborate with your institution (GUBA) towards the event. UNESCO’s work in the area of Culture and Gender, finds convergence in the objectives of GUBA for the awards”.
The letter stated that apart from technical support, UNESCO will also collaborate with GUBA to explore further cooperation in future activities.
Welcoming the support, GUBA Enterprise’s President and CEO, Dentaa Amoateng MBE, lauded the collaboration and said the camaraderie from UNESCO would serve as a major springboard for the success of the awards this year. “For us at GUBA, such support and collaborations from a powerful organization as UNESCO is a great motivation for us not to fail,” Dentaa Amoateng MBE noted.
2021 marks exactly 100 years of the death of Yaa Asantewaa, the last African woman to lead a major war against colonial powers in 1900, where she played the role of the Commander-in-Chief of the powerful Asante Empire.
These events will observe an important moment in African history, one that is unique to the relations between the Republic of Ghana and the Republic of Seychelles and is expected to host several high-profile personalities from the diaspora.
While celebrating Yaa Asantewaa, the awards will also recognize the contribution of Black women in the diaspora and Africa. The 2021 GUBA Awards will also raise awareness on maternal mortality and call for measures to ensure safe child delivery across the continent.
GUBA Enterprise believes that every child, born and unborn, has a great potential and must be given the opportunity to fulfill this potential.
The occasion also highlights 2021 being the AU Year of Arts, Culture and Heritage and provides information on the General History of Africa, a UNESCO supported project “unparalleled in its ambition to cover the history of the entire African continent, since the appearance of human beings to contemporary challenges faced by Africans and their Diasporas in the world.”
About the theme
The year 2021 marks a centenary of the death of Nana Yaa Asantewaa, an Asante Queen Mother and the last African woman to lead a major war against colonial powers in 1900, where she played the role of the Commander-in-Chief of the powerful Asante Empire. After the war, Yaa Asantewaa was captured and taken to Seychelles in exile, where she lived until her demise on October 21, 1921. This year, marks exactly 100 years of her transition.
Grow, Unite, Build, Africa (GUBA) Enterprise seeks to promote greater economic, social, and cultural cooperation between Africa and the African diaspora through harnessing the power of the African youth to advance the socio-economic interests of the continent.
The GUBA Awards is a non-profit organisation that focuses on enriching the African community in the Diaspora and in Africa with the aim of empowerment and growth. It is an event dedicated to highlighting and rewarding outstanding achievers. As one of the most professionally executed and entertaining events, the GUBA Awards ceremony attracts a high caliber of African political luminaries as well as business and entrepreneurial personalities.
