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One Nation Reggae Festival: Sierra Leone builds cultural bridge between Africa and the Caribbean
There are moments when music moves beyond entertainment and begins to carry history, memory, and identity in the same breath.
In Sierra Leone, that shift is now being tested through the One Nation Reggae Festival (ONRF), returning to Freetown from November 25 to 30, 2026.
Reggae is not new to Africa. Its roots and its reach have long circled between the continent and the Caribbean.
What is changing is how Sierra Leone is choosing to organise that connection, not as a loose cultural exchange, but as a structured tourism and creative platform.
At the centre of this effort is the Ministry of Tourism and Cultural Affairs, led by Minister Nabeela Farida Tunis, which is positioning ONRF as part of a wider push to use culture as a working part of tourism development, diaspora engagement, and creative industry growth.
The festival does not begin on a stage. It begins in history. Across Freetown and its coastal edges, heritage sites linked to the Atlantic slave trade sit within the festival’s programme, including Bunce Island.
These locations are not treated as background stops. They are part of the experience itself.
That design choice defines ONRF. It places reggae, a genre shaped by displacement and return, in direct conversation with the geography of that history.
Minister Tunis framed this connection in clear terms: “We invite the diaspora, global travellers, creatives, young people, and lovers of culture to come to Sierra Leone not only for entertainment, but for a spiritual rebirth, a rediscovery of identity, and an immersive experience of freedom, resilience, rhythm, and heritage.”
She described the festival as “a journey of reconnection and remembrance, rooted in the deep historical ties between Africa, the Caribbean and the wider Atlantic.”
The 2025 edition of ONRF established the foundation.
International reggae acts including Sizzla Kalonji, Christopher Martin, and Queen Ifrica performed in Freetown, joined by local talent from the Reggae Union Sierra Leone. But the programme extended far beyond music.
It moved through heritage tours across the capital, creative development clinics, an emerging artists platform, and a closing ceremony staged at Bunce Island. Each layer added a different entry point into the same story, music, memory, and movement.
A portion of proceeds was channeled into a Creative Village to support local musicians and technical crews. Another share went toward hurricane relief efforts in Jamaica, extending the festival’s reach into community support.
The outcome of that first edition was not only attendance. It was structure. ONRF began to operate less like a concert series and more like a cultural system linking performance, place, and participation.
The 2026 edition builds on that structure. Across six days in November, Freetown will host live roots reggae, workshops, traditional dance, food experiences, sound system culture, fashion showcases, and beach-based cultural activities. The festival is designed to move audiences across different spaces, not keep them in one.
The result is a layered experience where heritage tours sit alongside music stages, and where craft markets and creative labs exist within the same programme flow.
This year’s edition is expected to expand international participation while keeping local artists central, including continued involvement from Sierra Leone’s reggae community.
ONRF sits within Sierra Leone’s Year of Culture and Creativity, a national focus that links cultural programming with tourism growth and creative enterprise development.
In practical terms, the festival is being used to test how culture can operate across multiple sectors at once, tourism, entertainment, heritage, and creative training.
The 2025 edition showed what happens when heritage becomes part of a live event structure.
Sites like Bunce Island were not visited as static landmarks. They became part of a closing cultural programme that combined reflection with performance. The effect was a shift in how visitors moved through history, not as observers, but as participants in a staged experience.
Economically, the festival generated activity across hospitality, transport, and retail, with a sold-out concert anchoring demand in Freetown.
The second edition now carries a different test. It is no longer about introducing the concept.
It is about how far it can grow without losing its structure. More international acts are expected. More African and Caribbean collaborations are being planned.
The creative development components are set to expand further.
But the core design remains unchanged, music, heritage, and movement across spaces tied together in one programme.
The One Nation Reggae Festival is now operating in a space where culture is not only presented, but organised into an experience that connects identity, place, and tourism in the same frame.
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Oxfam in Ghana donates medical equipment and essential drugs worth GH¢1.5 million to Kasoa Polyclinic
Oxfam in Ghana has donated medical equipment and essential drugs worth about GH¢1.5 million to the Kasoa Polyclinic to strengthen maternal and reproductive healthcare services in the municipality.
The presentation, which took place on Tuesday, June 24, 2026, at the premises of the clinic in Kasoa, formed part of the sustainability and legacy activities under the Power to Choose (P2C) Project.
The donated items included delivery beds, maternity beds, oxygen cylinders, neonatal resuscitation equipment, blood pressure monitors, newborn weighing scales, suction machines, delivery kits, essential medicines, medical theatre wear and other critical supplies to support quality healthcare delivery.
The Power to Choose Project is a seven-year initiative being implemented by Oxfam in Ghana in partnership with the Planned Parenthood Association of Ghana (PPAG), WiLDAF Ghana, SEND Ghana, Norsaac and PARDA, with funding from Global Affairs Canada through Oxfam Quebec.
The project seeks to improve sexual and reproductive health and rights for young people, particularly adolescent girls, young women and young men living in vulnerable and marginalised conditions.
Addressing nurses and management of the hospital, the Country Director for Oxfam in Ghana, Mohammed-Anwar Sadat Adam, said the project, which began in 2021 and will run until early 2028, is being implemented in seven countries across Africa, Latin America and the Middle East.
He said Ghana and the Democratic Republic of Congo are the two African countries benefiting from the project.
Mr. Adam noted that the project has already trained about 102 health workers in areas including youth-friendly services, emergency obstetric and neonatal care, family planning, gender-based violence response, respectful maternity care and inclusive healthcare delivery.
He said Oxfam and its partners conducted assessments at beneficiary facilities and identified equipment needs to help improve healthcare delivery.
According to him, the donation would create safe spaces where young women and girls could seek healthcare services without fear or stigma and would improve health outcomes in the community.
Mr. Adam thanked the Government of Canada, the Ghana Health Service, the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Ghana (SOGOG), World Health Ghana and other partners for supporting the implementation of the project.
He urged the beneficiary facilities to ensure that the equipment is properly used and maintained to serve the community for many years.
A speech by the Municipal Health Director for Awutu Senya East, Dr. Stanley Kweku Yaidoo, which was read on his behalf by the Municipal Accountant, Rev. Dr. Askari Thomas, described the donation as timely and important.
He said quality healthcare delivery depends on manpower, financial resources and equipment, adding that healthcare workers cannot effectively deliver services without the necessary tools.
Dr. Yaidoo thanked Oxfam and its partners for selecting Kasoa as one of the beneficiary facilities and assured them that the equipment would be put to good use.
The Acting Medical Superintendent of Kasoa Polyclinic, Dr. Papa Kojo Arthur, expressed appreciation to Oxfam for its continuous support over the years through training and capacity building.
He said the equipment would greatly support the effective management of patients, particularly in maternal and child healthcare.
According to him, the donation would help reduce maternal and perinatal mortality in the municipality.
The donation formed part of efforts to strengthen the capacity of youth-friendly health facilities in eight implementing districts across five regions of Ghana to continue providing quality and accessible sexual and reproductive healthcare services beyond the lifespan of the project.
By: Jacob Aggrey
The Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Creative Arts (MoTCCA) has announced that an electronic copy of Ghana’s revised National Cultural Policy is now available online for free access by the public and stakeholders in the creative sector.
In a statement issued on June 22, the ministry said the revised policy was officially launched on June 9, 2026, at the National Theatre of Ghana in Accra.
According to the ministry, the decision to upload the document on its official website is aimed at ensuring widespread dissemination, increasing public awareness and promoting the effective implementation of the policy.
The ministry encouraged sector practitioners, stakeholders and members of the public to visit its website and read the document.
“The Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Creative Arts, in the spirit of the Black Star Experience, remains committed to a transparent, inclusive and collaborative approach to building the better Ghana we want,” the statement said.
It added that it looks forward to the active participation of stakeholders in implementing the policy for the benefit of the country.
The ministry urged the public to take advantage of the free access to the policy document and familiarise themselves with its contents.
By: Jacob Aggrey
