By Desmond Osae-Amponsah
(BlueCrest College BA MassComm Class of 2023)
BlueCrest Accra \u2013 7 February, 2020<\/p>\n
I went to Avatime Vane on a Pauline mission on 1 November 2019, responding to the cry \u201cCome to Avatime and help us\u201d.<\/p>\n
Despite their poverty, my \u201cWoezor\u201d or welcome was so special that I have decided to research and uplift the town and link it to the fortunes of BlueCrest College, where I am schooling.<\/p>\n
I had wanted to visit Avatime due to a story published on 4 July 2011 on ghanabusinessnews.com culled from GNA.<\/p>\n
In the story, Evans Ostyina, Vice President of Avatime Gemi Otoga Eco-tourism Society, announced at a seminar that his hometown was \u201cgreatly endowed with beautiful landscapes, mountains, varied species of birds, …..trees,\u201d but needed help \u201cto make the place a destination for many tourists\u201d.<\/p>\n
Determined to place both BlueCrest College and Avatime on a bigger pedestal, like Saint Paul sent by no one, I chose to heed the call for help from Ms A, a Facebook acquaintance.<\/p>\n
Ms A, who teaches at a basic school in Avatime has lived practically all her life in the village.<\/p>\n
It is made up of six sister settlements, namely Amedzofe, Avatime Biakpa, Avatime Dzogbefeme, Avatime Gbadzeme, Avatime Fume, and Avatime Dzokpe.<\/p>\n
Vane, where the \u2018Osie\u2019 or overlord of Avatime resides, is located on the main Ho-Fume road.<\/p>\n
The people celebrate Amu or \u2018rice festival\u2019, typical of Ghanaian harvest festivals.<\/p>\n
Little wonder the population of mostly farmers grow varieties of cassava, yams, beans, cocoyam, rice and plantains in typical mixed cropping style.<\/p>\n
Those crops are suffused into large farms of coffee, cocoa, gardens of okra, tomatoes, avocados, bananas, papaya, palm nut and tea meant for more commercial purposes.<\/p>\n
Avatime Vane has a cool microclimate, thanks to the Akwapim-Togo Ranges, an ancient volcanic rock formation, with an all year round sunshine.<\/p>\n
Due to less crowded housing and a pristine natural semi-deciduous forest, I was able to stay here overnight without needing a fan or AC, unlike in Accra.<\/p>\n
The school system here was established by German missionaries in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but this has not seen much progress.<\/p>\n
Tourists normally use the mountains for hiking, but here again, Vane hardly featured in the Year of Return tourist frenzy.<\/p>\n
Avatime\u2019s contribution to world history is that the Germans settled here during World War ll, setting up their telephone signal poles, which aided their telephone communications.<\/p>\n
But almost 75 years since the war ended, the telephone network here is rather poor making it a major push factor; I certainly cannot stay without an Internet connection.<\/p>\n
Here, I believe BlueCrest College, being the best IT training institution in Ghana can strongly advocate for research into the German telephone technology and contribute important national solutions.<\/p>\n
I hereby promise to get Avatime Senior High School a place in the BlueCrest National Competitive Exam so that Avatime citizens too can win the BlueCrest Presidential Scholarship Awards.<\/p>\n
If I get an Avatime citizen to study IT at BlueCrest College, the town\u2019s historical relevance in telecommunications engineering will be restored.<\/p>\n
And by this story I am also sending out the battle cry, \u201cCome to Avatime and help us\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n
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