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| Dogkudome Tegzuylle I, Pognaa (Queen Mother) of Lyssah /Credit:Nyani Quarmyne |
This summer, we spent a couple of weeks with
some truly amazing women in Ghana. They are the Queen Mothers – women who recently
reclaimed their ancestral power and are now taking leadership roles in their communities.
There are some 10,000 Queen Mothers in villages and towns across the country. They
form a remarkable, but little known,
network, bringing tangible social and economic development to the country and
the continent.
Thanks to a grant from the
European Journalism Centre, we (a filmmaker, photographer, TV producer and
myself) were able to spend time with Queen Mothers in Lawra Traditional Area, a
vast, rural territory in the upper western corner of the country, and in Ho, a town
in the Volta region. We wanted to see how Queen Mothers worked at grassroots level. We
found strong, warm, charismatic women who managed to accomplish so much
with so little. I often think of them…
Here an article on the Queen Mothers, which I wrote for the Telegraph Magazine, along with beautiful pictures
by Nyani Quarmyne.
And
for a more immersive experience, watch our multimedia "The Formidable Queen Mothers of Ghana".
