PEACE PROJECT COMMENCES (PAGE 55)

A Nation-wide Peace Project (NWPP) making a pilgrimage throughout the country to sensitise Ghanaians through films and photographs to the terror and atrocities of conflicts has been launched in Accra.
The peace project is aimed at preventing conflict in this election year to foster qualitative development.
Mr Gilbert Kwaku Adu, a freelance photographer, who initiated the project, said a lot of African countries had experienced devastating wars as a result of aborted elections.
He said the developed countries enjoyed peace as a result of the tolerance and acceptance of pre- and post-elections results.
With all the abundance of natural and human resources, Africa continues to suffer from poverty resulting from the numerous wars that plague the continent as a result of elections.
He explained that elections should be seen as tools for sustainable development economically and socially to enhance the welfare of the electorate through whose mandate leaders are chosen.
Mr Adu said political and tribal conflicts had displaced millions of people in Africa with women and children becoming victims of rape, hunger and severe suffering through no fault of theirs.
He said the spectacle of such people in television and films was what the NWPP was using to tour the country to make Ghanaians aware of the fact that peace was far better than conflict.
As a freelance photographer he had travelled extensively to conflict areas and had witnessed the pathetic plight of innocent people, especially women and children who had no means to flee the conflict areas and caught in crossfire.
Mr Adu said it was against that background that the peace project was initiated to sensitise the public to avoid tribal, chieftaincy and political conflicts.
He explained that the project was collaborating with the district assemblies, community chiefs and opinion leaders, churches, Muslim leaders to achieve its objective to prevent any election violence.
He added that documentaries of some war-torn countries would be shown in the communities for people to see the sad effects of conflicts.
Mr Adu said the project would disseminate information through print and electronic media as well as organise inter-party sports competitions in all the regions among the youth and party supporters to enable the youth to embrace peace instead of conflict in the forthcoming elections.
Launching the project on behalf of Rev Sam Korankye Ankrah, Apostle General of Royal House Chapel, Pastor Anthony Larbi said the peace project called for concerted efforts of peace-loving people to push the project to its logical conclusion, to prevent war in the country.
He said many Ghanaians, especially the youth, had not seen war and that the idea they had of war was the dictionary definition.
The church had therefore decided to provide the peace project with a broad platform to allow the youth to experience war through films and photographs that captured war situations so all would see what conflicts could do to a nation.
Ms Cecilia Anderson, National Co-ordinator of Child Rights Protection Advocacy of the World Vision Ghana, called on the media, especially the radio stations, to exercise restraint in their reports to help prevent election violence in the country.
Ms Anderson deplored the attitude of some radio stations in their use of inflammatory language and their disrespect for leadership in the country.