Within the Kingdom of Ashanti, which comprised about half of recent Ghana, custom information say that it was the queen mom who was answerable for introducing new applied sciences such because the iron hoe and the oil lamp. So when the newly-formed Expertise Consultancy Centre (TCC) of the Kwame Nkrumah College of Science and Expertise (KNUST), Kumasi, was seeking a brand in 1972, it selected a conventional design, printed on material by the Adinkra craftsmen of the village of Ntonso and known as ‘ohemaa nkyinkyin’ or the queen mom would not loiter about with nothing to do. The symbol doesn’t solely have a reputation but in addition a message: ‘esese me danedane me ho na meye neama pii, I have to change myself and play many components.’ Engineering, like another professions, has historically been thought-about a male protect, so it’s pleasing to notice that in Ghana, previous and current, ladies have been accorded due credit score for his or her involvement in technical innovation.
One exercise that’s historically related to ladies is jam making, and certainly one of Ghana’s earliest and most profitable industrial entrepreneurs was a jam maker, Esther Ocloo, who needed to purchase a great deal of technical data in establishing her giant trendy meals processing plant, Nkulenu Industries, at Madina close to Accra. Esther Ocloo was elected the primary president of the Ghana Producers Affiliation when it was based in 1958 (because the Federation of Ghana Industries) and she or he was re-elected to serve a second time period from 1978 to 1980. Her monumental contribution to grassroots industrialisation in Ghana was recognised by the TCC and she or he was awarded an honorary DSc by KNUST at its Silver Jubilee congregation for the conferment of levels in 1976. It was to be one of many earliest of many nationwide and worldwide honours conferred upon her over the following quarter century.
Shortly after the demise of Dr Ocloo in 2002, her niece, Dr Peggy Oti-Boateng, was appointed director of the TCC. Peggy had joined the TCC in 1982 to serve her yr of Nationwide Service and she or he stayed on to advertise ladies’s initiatives in meals processing and beekeeping. After some years away, together with finding out for a PhD in Australia, Peggy returned to the TCC as a senior member, resulting in her appointment as director in 2003. So the involvement of girls, and the Nkulenu clan, in grassroots industrial improvement continued into the twenty first century.
Cecilia Apawu graduated from KNUST in 1989 with a level in mining and mineral engineering. For her remaining yr thesis, Cecilia selected to work with the TCC’s Suame Intermediate Expertise Switch Unit (ITTU) on a examine of the expertise of the aluminium pot casters of Suame Journal, Ghana’s largest casual industrial areas. The work she achieved was a very good instance of how the scientific methodology will be utilized to know and ultimately improve a longtime grassroots business. Later, after becoming a member of the GRATIS venture at Tema, close to Accra, Cecilia was in a position to repeat her examine with the artisans in Ashiaman and set up a coaching programme on the Tema ITTU to assist them enhance the standard of their merchandise.
Within the early Eighties, on the Suame ITTU, no younger ladies got here ahead for apprenticeships in any of the engineering workshops. This was in all probability due to the sturdy male custom within the crafts of the Journal. Nonetheless, when the ITTU got here to Tamale, and later to Tema, it discovered no such boundaries to feminine recruitment and younger ladies utilized for apprenticeships in rising numbers. The method was aided by the presence of feminine engineers and technicians who undoubtedly inspired their sisters to comply with them into engineering. By the flip of the century, a number of former feminine apprentices of the Tamale and Tema ITTUs have been working their very own small engineering workshops outfitted with trendy machine instruments.
One of the profitable initiatives of the Tema ITTU was the introduction of the locally-manufactured metal-spinning lathe. This improvement was prompted by the provision of aluminium sheets produced in Tema by Aluworks Ltd. Utilizing lathes made in Tema by Kofi Asiamah’s Redeemer workshop and others, entrepreneurs produced giant portions of home pots and pans that bought at aggressive costs in native markets. In 5 years the business grew to incorporate greater than 100 producers using an estimated 5000 staff. Lots of the pioneering entrepreneurs have been ladies who had previously bought imported merchandise of an identical nature. It might be centuries for the reason that queen mom of Ashanti noticed some great benefits of the oil lamp however ladies in Ghana right now are nonetheless fast to identify alternatives to profit from new industrial developments.
