By Hafsa Obeng, GNA
Accra, July 19, GNA – The 2023 PANAFEST/Emancipation Day celebrations have started today with a pilgrimage from the southern part of Ghana to the north.
The pilgrimage is for participants to experience the historical slave routes to the Cape Coast and Elmina Castles and finally to their unknown destinations.
The five-day tour would include a durbar of Chiefs at the Pikworo Slave Camp in the Upper East Region, an atonement ceremony at the Salaga Slave Camp in the Northern Region, conversation with Elders and Tour of the Bono Slave Market in the Bono East Region and end with the crossing of the River Pra at Assin Praso in the Central Region.
Other events for the celebration are wreath-laying ceremonies at the W.E.B Du Bois Centre, George Padmore Library and the Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Park on Monday, July 24, 2023, in Accra.
Others are inter-faith dialogue, colloquium, return journey and Akwaaba ceremony, youth day, durbar of traditional leaders, women’s day and reverential night in Cape Coast.
The celebrations would climax with the 25th Anniversary Day Durbar at Assin Manso in the Central Region.
PANAFEST is an acronym for Pan-African Historical and Theatre Festival. It is a cultural event held in Ghana every two years since 1992 for Africans and people of African descent to promote and enhance unity, Pan- Africanism and the development of the continent.
Emancipation Day marks the Abolition of Slavery in the British Colonies in 1834. It is an annual observance introduced in Ghana in 1998.
This year’s PANAFEST is on the theme: “Reclaiming the African family, confronting the past to face the challenges of the 21st century”.
The Emancipation is on the theme “Emancipation, empowering the African family to confront challenges of the 21st century”.
