About Us
The Ama Ata Aidoo Centre for Creative Writing was established March 17, 2017 as a learning facility at the African University College of Communications in Adabraka, Accra in honor of the legendary writer. Under the auspices of the Kojo Yankah School of Communication at AUCC, the AidooCentre has since then created numerous opportunities for literary connection and exchange and stimulated cultural expression, primarily in the Accra city area.
Our Vision
The AidooCentre was established to increase literacy in Ghana by encouraging critical reading and creative writing. This it does by primarily nurturing book and reading clubs, making literature available to their members, and connecting readers to authors of their favorite books.
Our Mission
The Aidoo Center is dedicated to furthering AUCC's role in the development of a national literature through programs, projects and activities that will both nurture literary writers and scholars in Ghana and encourage their interaction with other writers and artists in West Africa and around the world.
Our Aim
Towards making the nation literate, the Centre has a principal goal in mind: to become a major repository of literature with a focus on digitally archiving for public access all known works by authors of African descent.
Our Activities
Year round, the Centre strives to achieve its aim and realize its vision through regular events that come under such names as #Talk, #Speakers'Forum, #Colloquium, #AuthorReading, #Publications, #NotableNewWritersSeries, #AnEncounter, #InternationalYouthForum, #Workshop and #Summit.
What We honor
- In particular, we honor the outstanding achievement of visionaries at the front-line of literature and ideas with our annual Aidoo Prize for Outstanding Literary Work in Ghana
- We protect cultural heritage by ensuring that our deserving authors are read and discussed and their works promoted
- We support innovative, new, quality literary initiatives through mentoring, collaboration and coordination
- We work for and with youth through our #OneBookOneCommunity, #InTheirOwnWords, and #CommunityReading outreaches, and
- We create networks of exchange of ideas.
Funding
We are supported by the Kojo Yankah School of Communication, AUCC, and are currently looking to private individuals and corporations in our effort to expand and reach more potential readers and authors. We also collaborate with like-minded organizations towards the realization of our vision and goals.
Join us
The Aidoo Centre seeks Support. We would like to partner with organizations in any way they deem suitable in one or a combination of the following ways:
- providing content for the Creative Writing space whether (hard or/and soft),
- sponsoring any of the Centre's programs that are scheduled year-long, or
- assisting in equipping the Centre with the necessary tools to bring its standard up to par.
About Prof. Ama Ata Aidoo
Prof. Ama Ata Aidoo is one of the most decorated feminist writers of recent times. Her numerous works include 'Someone Talking to Sometime', 'Anowa', 'Our Sister Killjoy' and 'Changes'. Aidoo began to write seriously while an honors student at the University of Ghana. She won early recognition with the groundbreaking play, 'The Dilemma of a Ghost' (1965), in which a Ghanaian student returning home brings his African American wife into the traditional culture and the extended family that he now finds restrictive. In 1982-83 she served as Ghana's minister of education.
The Director of #AidooCentre
Nana S. Achampong was appointed January 2018 as Director of the Ama Ata Aidoo Centre for Creative Writing at AUCC. He is a member of faculty at the Kojo Yankah School for Communication Studies and Coordinator of Programs, School of Research and Graduate Studies. Achampong has to his credit twenty books in different genres including poetry, a play, two nonfiction, and journalism.
Achampong is also a journalist,
filmmaker, a fine artist, a music producer, and a television producer.
