Ghana's Festivals And Religion

GUSTAVO
To start with, we have decided to talk about Ghana’s festivals and religion. But what caught our attention, and we imagine yours too, was how an African country turned to have English as an official language. What we found out turned out to be very interesting and we would like to share it with you.
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The Country Ghana
Ghana is a country on the West Coast of Africa. F Itis bordered by Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast) to the west, Burkina Faso to the north, Togo to the east, and the Gulf of Guinea to the south.
The country's economy is dominated by agriculture, which employs about 40 percent of the working population. Ghana has an estimated population of 22 million, drawn from more than one hundred ethnic groups - each with its own unique language. English, however, isthe official language, a legacy of British colonial rule.
Ghana has several tourist attractions, but as every country in the african continent, it maintains certain traditions for centuries. We have decided to focus on festivals and religion which, we believe, can add information to the rich culture of this country

Religion
Religious tolerance in Ghana is very high. F There is a hugesense of religion in every corner of the country, which has churches everywhere F Most churches offer 3 hour services to choose from on any given Sunday F Many of the store names proclaim their beliefs, such as “Humble Work Furniture”, or one of my favorites, “Jesus Loves Fashion.”
The Presbyterian Church of Ghana, concerned about “the spread” of homosexuality in the nation, is stepping up itspromotion of the widely discredited practice of so-called reparative therapy, aimed at converting gay people to straight. “the practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching.”
Although no official figures exist to reflect regional distribution of the various denominations, it is generally agreed that the southern part of the nation is more Christian, while the north is more Islamic.The major Christian celebrations of Christmas and Easter are recognized as national holidays.


Christianity
The presence of Christian missionaries on the coast of Ghana has been dated to the arrival of the Portuguese in the fifteenth century. It was the Basel/Presbyterian and Wesleyan/Methodist missionaries, however, who, in the nineteenth century, laid the foundation for the Christianchurch in Ghana. These missionaries established schools as "nurseries of the church" in which an educated African class was trained
Almost all major secondary schools today, especially exclusively boys and girls schools, are mission- or church-related institutions.
Although churches continue to influence the development of education in the country, church schools have been opened to all since thestate assumed financial responsibility for formal instruction under the Education Act of 1960.
The unifying organization of Christians in the country is the Ghana Christian Council, founded in 1929. These Christian organizations, concerned primarily with the spiritual affairs of their congregations, have occasionally acted in circumstances described by the government as political. The RomanCatholic newspaper, The Standard, was often critical of government policies


Islam
In the north, Islam predominates. The spread of Islam into West Africa, beginning with ancient Ghana in the ninth century, was mainly the result of the commercial activities of North African Muslims. F Traditional religious beliefs have served as the fabric of society’s set codes of behaviour for many years.Islam made its entry into the northern territories of modern Ghana around the fifteenth century. Mande or Wangara traders and clerics carried the religion into the area.
Despite the spread of Islam in the Middle East, North Africa, and even in Nigeria since the mid-1970s, Ghanaian Muslims and Christians have had excellent relations. Guided by the authority of the Muslim Representative Council,...