Posted by BY J E SOLOMON
EXACTLY 20 years ago today, the Ghana National Commission on Children (GNCC) held a national awards ceremony for journalists, broadcasters and other communicators selected on merit to receive various prizes for their respective roles in highlighting issues that promoted the welfare of children during the previous year, 1992.
The 1993 Media Features on Children Award ceremony was held in Accra on Tuesday, August 31st, 1993 at the forecourt of the GNCC Secretariat, near the Children’s Park at Ridge.
Winners of the first and third prizes, Miss Mavis Quaicoe and Mr. J. E. Solomon respectively, were both editorial staff of the Graphic Corporation, now Graphic Communications Group Limited, publishers of the state-owned newspaper that published their articles. The Graphic Communications Group head office is located in Accra, where both award winners were stationed.
Miss Quaicoe, 2nd from right, is seen holding her packages for the first prize award. Mr. Solomon is on the far left.
Miss Mavis Quaicoe is now Mrs. Kitcher and is the current editor of the Junior Graphic, a sister paper of the state-owned newspaper, the Daily Graphic. Mr. J E Solomon, then a proof-reader at the Graphic Editorial Department, is now a diagnostic imaging technologist.
In 1979 the Daily Graphic was renamed the People’s Daily Graphic under Jerry Rawlings for some years to remind Ghanaians that the newspaper “belongs to them.”
The first prize article written by Mavis, was published some time in 1992 in the Women, Children & Society page of the People’s Daily Graphic. It highlighted the need to establish an endowment fund for needy children. Mr. Solomon’s article also was published in the People’s Daily Graphic on September 10, 1992. It was titled, THE CHILD’S RIGHT TO PROTECTION: The State v Parents. It called on the State to intervene to protect innocent children from being victims of their parents’ religious doctrines that prohibit administration of drugs for the sick.
Mrs. Ama Benyiwa-Doe, then Deputy Minister of Employment and Social Welfare, presented the awards. She is seen in the above picture standing 5th from right. Fourth from right is Mrs. Alberta Quartey, Chairperson of the GNCC at the time.