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| CELEBRATING CHOCOLATE |
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| Posted on: 2007-Jan-10 GNA |
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The announcement yesterday of the designation of a day to promote national consumption of Ghana chocolate, is a good signal that the Golden Jubilee is acting as a catalyst in more ways than one for Ghana to get its act together.
The decision to establish a National Chocolate Day, as well as the idea to mark the day on February 14, St Valentine’s Day, is surely a double achievement and highly commendable.
Other countries have long been putting a premium on chocolate, not only as a confectionery, but as a gift item, a food of love and a symbol of romance. Why has it taken Ghana this long to jump on the lucrative chocolate bandwagon?
If Ghana, one-time the world’s No. 1 producer of cocoa and currently the No.2, can’t promote consumption of cocoa and chocolate among its own citizens then, as the Ghanaian witticism puts it: "Did we go or did we come?"
And definitely Ghana doesn’t want to be standing still; Ghana can’t afford to be standing still on the issue of the Golden Pod when countries that import cocoa from this country to manufacture chocolate have been promoting it as their No. 1 confectionery in their countries – where no cocoa trees grow.
As the Minster for Tourism and Diasporan Relations rightfully noted when he launched the event yesterday, it seems odd that Ghana is not promoting the consumption of Ghanaian chocolate when Japan and South Korea are doing that.
In Japan and South Korea, the most popular brand of chocolate is reportedly a chocolate bar that the manufacturers have named "Ghana Chocolate" in honour of Ghana’s high quality cocoa beans used to manufacture the product.
Designating St Valentine’s Day as Ghana’s own Chocolate Day is very creative and in the right spirit. All over the world February 14 is marked as a day for romance and for lovers and the centrepiece of the day is the giving of chocolates as an expression of love.
What is left now is to ensure that all the Valentine’s Day stakeholders who have been promoting the day with dedication will now turn their energies into similarly promoting the National Chocolate Day so that it will catch on, especially with the youth and soon eclipse the Valentine.
The decision should also lay to rest the unease in many quarters that the annual Valentine’s Day fever illustrates just how much the country’s culture is being overshadowed by foreign ones. To those people the National Chocolate Day will surely be a welcome change.
However, the enthusiasm for Valentine’s Day, notably with the youth, has also pointed to people’s need for such a fun day. Hopefully, the designation of National Chocolate Day will be able to fill the vacuum that the Valentine’s Day filled.
Thus we believe that similarly, it has a good chance of being adopted with gusto, and that in time it will come to be marked as a very Ghanaian celebration – if well planned and well promoted with the same growing creativity as has been witnessed over the years with the observance of Valentine’s Day.
But we’re by no means saying that the wheel should be re-invented. The Tourism Ministry and other stakeholders could conveniently adapt the existing St Valentine’s Day programmes and activities for celebrating the National Chocolate Day.
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