US Embassy Honours Ghanaian Peacemaker
FOR HER dedicated services towards peacebuilding and emergency response to local as well as regional conflicts, Janet Adama Mohammed was yesterday presented the 2010 Martin Luther King Jnr. Award for Peace and Social Justice by the US Embassy in Accra.
Mrs. Mohammed is said to have mobilised the youth, women, elders, farmers and chiefs to create sustainable peace via dialogue and mutual understanding.
Her persistent efforts in 20 years yielded co-existence between the security services and the communities they served.
The first, however, to receive the award since its inauguration in 2008 were the Rt. Rev. Vincent Boi-Nai, Bishop of Yendi and Alhaji Al-Hussein Zakaria, Director of CODEYAC, Tamale in the Northern region of Ghana.
Also, the Executive Director of the Ark Foundation, Angela Dwamena-Aboagye, received the award last year.
In its third-year running, the Peace and Social Justice Award recognises Ghanaians who exemplify the spirit of Martin Luther King Jnr. in helping to build a culture of peacemaking, dialogue and conflict resolution.
It honours also, activists who have promoted social justice, stability, human rights and peace through non-violent means.
Every third Monday of January, Americans honour the life and achievements of the Reverend Luther King Jnr.
He won the 1964 Noble Peace prize and subsequently became an individual mostly associated with the triumphs of the African-American civil rights movement during the 1950 and 1960s.
Noted for organising political platforms with skilled oratory, the late Luther King played pivotal roles in persuading his fellow Americans to end the legal segregation which prevailed throughout the south and parts of other regions.
Again, in his heyday, he ignited support for the civil rights legislation, making way for the establishment of the legal framework for racial equality in the United States.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Mohammed hails from Siniesa near Sandama in the Upper East region of Ghana. She started work as a High School tutor, teaching Geography at the Tamale Secondary School in the northern part of the country from 1987 to 1993.
The award recipient helped to establish the Northern Region Peace Advisory Council, the Ghana Network for Peacebuilding, Women in Peacebuilding Movement and chaired the InterNGO Consortium for several years.
She told DAILY GUIDE immediately after she received the award that though conflict is a natural phenomenon, continuous peacebuilding processes will help create relative peace in areas susceptible to disagreements.
With much appreciation and collective effort from parties in such situations, Mrs. Mohammed noted that the people will be able to resolve their own differences in the peacebuilding process.
Present to grace the occasion were the National Chief Imam, Dr. Osman Nuhu Sharubutu, Myra Brown of the U.S. Embassy in Accra, Chief Executive Officer of the Chamber of Mines, Joyce Aryee, Betty Mould-Iddrisu, Minister of Justice and A-G, Nana Oye Lithur, Regional Coordinator of the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI), Ursula Owusu among others.