Ajumako-Enyan-Essiam enstools new queen

The Chiefs and people of Ajumako Techiman Traditional Area in the Ajumako-Enyan-Essiam District of the Central Region have enstooled Nana Hembaa Nyamaah Awortwi I, new queen of the area.

Known in private life as Khardijatu Nuhu Mahama Kamargatey Peschel, the 51-year-old nurse, becomes the first to formally sit on the stool as queen from TwidanAfokurasi.

She was taken through the principal streets in a palanquin alongside Tufuhene, Nana Agyei Yeboah and Safohene Kwame Afedzi and was formally out-doored at a durbar of chiefs and people in the AjumakoTechiman Traditional Area.

In an interview with journalists after the durbar, Nana Nyamaah Awortwi I, said she would focus on addressing developmental challenges in the area and the Central Region in general.

She mentioned sanitation, teenage pregnancy and promotion of vocational and technical education as some of the issues she would focus on.

On sanitation, she said it would be her desire to see it inculcated in children at the basic school level to enable them to appreciate environmental cleanliness.

Nana Nyamaah Awortwi I, noted that a clean environment could help reduce some of the commonly known diseases in the community and drastically reduce OPD attendance.

She called for the adoption of proactive measures towards reversing the rate of teenage pregnancy in the region, saying, “the narrative that the Central Region is among the regions with high teenage pregnancy must change.”

The queen explained the importance of vocational and technical education and how this could help in the development of the area, saying that, “technical and vocational education continue to play critical roles in the economy of developed countries”.

She, therefore, urged the residents to embrace vocational and technical education due to its critical role in the socio-economic transformation of the country.

She explained that technical and vocational education should not be seen as an avenue for a certain category of people noting that the area was a specialised field which required the nation’s best brains and said that the developed countries were able to achieve their current status due to their focus on technical and vocational education.

She admonished parents to make education of their children a priority and identify the potentials of their children but not force them into courses they were not interested in.

The queen further called on residents in the area to make peace and unity a cornerstone in their dealings with one another.

The 51-year-old woman and mother of two had her secondary education at the Damongo Secondary School in the Savannah Region and went for further studies in Germany. She is currently a practising nurse in the United Kingdom. 

From David O. Yarboi-Tetteh, Ajumako