METHODIST YOUTH MARCH FOR PEACE
Posted on Monday February 15, 2021Story: Emmanuel Ashong | October 31, 2020
Youth advocacy group, the Methodist Youth Against Vigilantism (MeYAV) has embarked on a peace march to campaign against violence and drum home the need to promote peace before, during and after the 2020 general elections in Ghana.
The march which came off on October 31, 2020, saw scores of youth march along some principal streets of Accra with placards accompanied by brass band music. Some of the placards read, “Elections do not mean war”, “Only your thumb, not your weapon”, “Be a patriotic citizen”, “We cry for peace” among others. The youth distributed flyers and leaflets to curious on-lookers along their route.
The march was held concurrently in various zones under the Accra Diocese and covered places like Adabraka, Kokomlemle, Caprice, Avenor, Kwame Nkrumah Circle, Kaneshie, Bubiashie and Abossey Okai. The rest were Mamprobi, Camara, Agege and Lartebiokorshie.
The Greater Accra Regional Director of the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE), Mrs Lucille Hewlett Annan commended the Methodist Church for the initiative and expressed hope for a peaceful election.
Ghana goes to the polls on December 7 to elect a president and 275 Members of Parliament (MP) in an election that is expected to be keenly contested. Ahead of the elections, there have been reports of pockets of violent clashes among sympathisers of the two major parties – the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the National Democratic Congress (NDC) in various parts of the country.
As part of efforts to ensure peace in the elections, the Accra Diocese of The Methodist Church Ghana in collaboration with the Greater Accra Regional Peace Council and the National Commission for Civic Education, earlier in October trained over a hundred young people drawn from various Circuits in the Accra Diocese to educate their peers and the general public on the need to eschew violence and create peace before, during and after the elections.
