Ghana and Cuba team up on ‘Year of Return 2019’

African Cultural Centre’s Cuban delegation consisting of four members has held discussions with the Ministry of Tourism, Creative Arts and Culture, Cathrine Afeku, in furtherance of a collaboration between Ghana and Cuba on the upcoming ‘Year of Return 2019’ programme to be hosted in Ghana.

The delegation was led by Pedro Luis González Despaign, the Cuban Ambassador to Ghana in the presence of other members such as Alberto Lescay (a renowned Cuban sculptor and painter), Manta Emilia Cordies Jackson and Marino Fuertes (associate researcher of the African Cultural Centre).

During the delegation’s courtesy call on Afeku at her office in Ghana’s capital city Accra recently, she said the group was in Ghana to share knowledge and skills with its Ghanaian counterparts in respect of the programme. According to her, Ghana would host over 500,000 diasporans in the celebration of the event that is to commemorate 400 years of the first docking of a ship that carried Africans into slavery in the Americas, Graphic Online noted.

The tourism minister told the delegation that since President Nana Akufo-Addo officially proclaimed 2019 as the ‘Year of Return’ for all diaspora descendants of Africans who were captured and transported into the Americas as slaves in the 17^th and 18^th centuries, a lot of people had shown interest in returning to Africa. “The proclamation recognises Ghana’s unique position as the location for 75 per cent of the slave dungeons built on the West coast of Africa and the President’s policy to make it a national priority to extend a hand of welcome back home to Africans in the diaspora,” she added.

According to the Cuban ambassador, the year of return was vital to the Cubans as more than one million Africans ended up in Cuba during the slave trade era. Their descendants also played a very significant role in the independence struggle of Cuba.

In the previous month, Republic of Cuba and Republic of Ghana reaffirmed their commitment to strengthening their cooperation for the mutual benefit of the two countries. The commitment was made when a delegation from Cuba, led by the Deputy Minister for Public Health of the Republic of Cuba, Marcia Cobas Ruiz, paid a courtesy call on the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration Charles Owiredu, on January 21, 2019.