Meet the Queen Mothers of Ghana: taking back their power and driving change in Africa

  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".