Project Okurase - A United Link for Better Lives

Project Okurase Tours & Workshops

The Nkabom Centre features exciting West African tours and workshops that are available for people from around the world to come and learn skills in African music, dance, and handcrafting. Below are descriptions of the tours and workshops. Dates for tours will be announced as new dates are set.

INFORMATION
For information on tours and workshops contact Samuel Yeboah at projectokurase@yahoo.com or Nana Yeboah at nyeboaa@yahoo.com.

TRAVEL ARRANGEMENTS
All tours include travel within Ghana, lodging and meals. Travel to Ghana from your country of origin is not included. Participants from America may wish to contact Project OKURASE's travel agent in America - Grand Cru Travel - at (843)530-8670 or e-mail grandcrutravel@comcast.net to arrange your travel to Ghana.

TOURS

West African Drumming and Dance Tour - UPCOMING TOUR SET FOR JULY 30 - AUGUST 13, 2009!

Samuel Nkrumah Yeboah, known in Ghana as Powerful, a Ghanaian drummer and drum maker and the founder of Nkabom African Music and Dance Ensemble, is pleased to invite you to Ghana for a two-week visit to his homeland. Experience drumming and dance offered by some of the best teachers and performing artists in Ghana. Enjoy sight-seeing and mixing with the local people to experience African culture from its source. This tour begins July 30 when you land in Accra, Ghana, and entails a full schedule of workshops and day trips until you depart on August 13.

Workshops are taught by professional artists with many years' experience teaching African, European, and American students at all levels. They are members of the Ghana Dance Association, Musicians Union of Ghana, and have performed with the Pan-African orchestra and the Ghana Dance Ensemble.

We encourage you to take a moment to learn more about this drumming and dance tour, and view the tour highlights. You may also find further instructions on how to register for the tour and tips on how to prepare for the trip. The profits from this tour go to fund Project OKURASE and its efforts to build the Nkabom Centre.

 

OTHER TOURS THAT WILL BE OFFERED AT A LATER DATE:

The Sankofa Tour

Sankofa means reaching back to the past, learning from it and bringing that knowledge to the present. The Sankofa tour is not for people who simply want to be tourists in Ghana. This tour is more a celebration of the culture and rich history of Ghana and how this history impacted people from many other countries where an African diaspora exists today. This tour is particularly relevant to people of West African descent who are seeking to understand their own personal and family origins.  

The Sankofa tour features formal ceremonies such as libation and naming ceremonies. Tour participants will begin their time in Ghana by interacting with a village chief in a formal ceremony to bless the time in Ghana. A walk will be taken through inner city Accra to embrace the hussle and bussle of African urban life. In Accra, participants will visit the Du Bois Heyward museum and the national art museum. A visit will be made to the Street Children's Academy to visit the children and gain an understanding of the life that many children face on the streets. Tour participants will visit the Nkabom Centre where they may purchase African clothing and accessories for their trip and to participate in workshops to learn traditional dance or drumming. The tour winds to Cape Coast where group members will visit the sobering Elmina Slave Castle and personally view the door of no return. Africans who were enslaved walked through this door to board ships bound for England, America, and other countries, never to see their homeland or family again. A second leg of the tour will take the group to Kumasi and to the village of Bonwire, the birthplace of Kente cloth. No visit to Kumasi would be complete without a tour of the Ashanti Palace to learn of the history of the Ashanti people. The tour offers an opportunity to eat the local cuisine, to observe the preparation of traditional foods such as fu fu, to listen to African storytellers and to embrace all that is wonderful, vibrant Ghana.

Humanitarian Tours

The raison d'etre of the Nkabom Centre is to meet the needs of children who are vulnerable and suffering due to poverty, malnutrition, and the impact of diseases such as HIV/AIDS. The humanitarian tour is not a vacation in Africa. This tour offers an opportunity to see some of spectacular Ghana but primarily to extend your heart and feed your soul by helping the world's most vulnerable children. Opportunities in the humanitarian tour may or may not be limited to participation in one of the following activities:

Humanitarian tour participants will also have the opportunity to attend workshops at the Nkabom Centre on African drumming, dance, textile design, jewelry making, and instrument making.

WORKSHOPS

A host of workshops are taught through artists who are part of the Nkabom Artist and Craftspeople Association NGO. We are fair trade and some of the money is channelled back into the Centre.

Drumming can build confidence, improve concentration, focus, non-verbal communication, listening skills and team building. Our workshops help develop an awareness and understanding of African culture, arts, music, and dance.

Workshops on offer can meet transforming Youth Work and National Curriculum targets, music, dance, arts, design, history and can lead to a final performance. We can create workshops to specific demand or particular aspects of music such as fusion, ensemble, composition or improvisation.

Examples of our workshops include: