Excellent Ghana Policy and Education Forum, a Civil Society Organisation (CSO), has launched its maiden Community Peace Dance Challenge, a dance reality show organised to blend fun and advocacy on electoral violence.
The Dance Challenge is also to discover and train talented young dancers amidst a blend of education on electoral violence and its related consequences for Ghana.
“The concept of the Community Peace Dance Challenge has been conceived to provide a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for young talented dancers to nurture their latent talents while learning their role as youth in consolidating our peace, as a country.”
This was disclosed by Awura Adwoa Sarfoa Addo, the Head of Programmes and Projects at Excellent Ghana.
According to her, the Community Peace Dance Challenge is designed to scout through all communities in Ghana and bring out the best by having participating groups send in videos of their dance to the panel of judges through a designated email or WhatsApp channel.
All persons above 18 years can voluntarily form a group to participate. Each group should have between two-six members and the registration is absolutely free.
All a group must do is send a two-minute-video of the group doing the mandatory choreography using the 2020 Peace Dance music.
Each group is also expected to send a second two-minute video of the reigning dance within their community. In all, each group will send two separate videos. All videos should be in MP3 or MP4 formats.
Right after the launch, all groups now could start sending in their videos up till November 10, 2020. The judges will screen the received videos from the 10th – 18th November 2020.
Thereafter, selected groups will be notified to come to Accra for the grand finale on November 20, 2020. The best three groups that emerge tops will earn mouth-watering pecks including the trophy, cash prizes and consolatory gifts.
Mrs Addo was optimistic that the Community Peace Dance Challenge will help prevent or drastically reduce how the youth are procured and engaged in unlawful activities during elections.
Madam Janet Samey-Kuma, who represented the Chairman of the National Peace Council, Most Rev. Prof. Emmanuel Asante, charged the youth not to present themselves as tools for violence, adding that one could spend between 10 and 25 years in prison if convicted of vigilante related offences by court.
Delivering a speech on behalf of the Chairman of the Peace Council, Madam Samey-Kuma encouraged the political class to make youth agents and drivers of change in their respective communities and not employ them for negative activities.
The Director for Research, Policy Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation for the National Youth Authority, Rev. Frank Nartey, implored that “regardless of the party you support, we are Ghanaians; we desire to live in a peaceful country where we can do business, nurture our children while contributing our quota to national development.”
Rev. Lartey was full of praise for the organisers and urged them to include the NYA more in their youth-based activities.
In a citation, Excellent Ghana expressed its gratitude to the National Peace Council for its determined effort to ensure that all the actors in the peace architecture are properly networked to ensure coordination for sustainable peace in Ghana.
The CSO was also thankful to the National Youth Authority for their unflinching support.
Also at the Peace Dance Launch were the off-beat dancers who treated guests to their own innovative dance moves while doing the 2020 Jerusalema choreography formation.
The final winners are expected to be crowned later in the year.