Ms Amma Darko, a tax inspector and writer, has called on Ghanaian writers to produce children’s stories that reflect the country’s unique culture and identity to help in the holistic development of the youth.
She said the absence of such stories was contributing to lack of appreciation of children of their culture and way of life.
Ms Darko was speaking at the launch of two delightful children’s stories set in Accra.
They were written by forty-two year old mother and entrepreneur, Franka Andoh.
“Dokono, the Donkey” and “Koku, the Cockerel” are thought-provoking children’s stories with a local flavour.
The donkey in Dokono collects garbage within the Dzorwulu area. The story of Koku the cockerel, set in Adabraka, was based on a true story the author’s friend told her about a cockerel attacking his newly-acquired vehicle.
Ms Darko said books written with local imagery with areas that children could identify with would enable them to explore the connection between the foreign and local cultures and learn to appreciate the values through the experiences they acquired.
This, she said, would end the current dangerous tilt of children and the youth towards foreign cultures that did not augur well for their total development.
“We must all try and make the strong effort to get children grounded in the local boundary before getting them into other areas,” she said.
Mr Elliot Agyare, the Publisher, said it was important for parents to inculcate the habit of reading in their children to adequately prepare them for the future.
Ms Andoh said she was motivated to write children’s stories because she found it difficult to source well-written local stories.
“My goal is to offer children the opportunity to experience Ghanaian events through carefully-crafted stories to enable them to see reflections of their own lifestyle in print,” she stated.
. “I want my daughter to read good stories set in her own environment, with names, meals and locations that she can associate with.”
Ms Andoh said she was currently working on a collection of short stories about women and two more children’s stories, which would be released soon.
Ms Andoh studied at the Christ the King School and then had her secondary education at the St Mary’s Secondary School, both in Accra.
She then left for England, where she studied Communications at the Croydon Business College, UK.
She started writing seriously after being accepted on the British Council Crossing Borders Programme, which linked emerging African writers with accomplished writers in the UK.
Subsequently, she had a short story, ‘Mansa’, published in the Caine Anthology in 2009.
“Dokono the Donkey” and “Koku the Cockerel” are available on amazon.com and in local bookstores.