His Excellency Ambassador Grant O. Kesse, Nanatum, Reverend Ministers, the Media, the people of Maase, distinguished invited guests.

First of all I want to mention, that to me as a Queenmother in Volta Region, it is a historic moment, to open this clinic in Eastern Region. If you are doing development work, like I have done for nearly lifetime, first of all you have to have visions. And you need to find people who are having visions too. One of these persons I found in Germany. He is sitting next to me; he is the former Ambassador to Germany, his Excellency, Ambassador Grant O. Kesse. After first talking to him in Germany, I immediately knew that he would be doing well for his country. He worked hard to bring investors to Ghana and get in touch with the German based NGOs, who are working here. I saw Ambassadors come and go, but he was the first, I did really enjoy working with. When he proposed the Maase Clinic Project to me, I saw that we are having the same wave lengths. First focused on education by building schools, girl hostels and kindergartens, in the last years of my development work here I focused more and more on the health sector, because a good health is the basic for every human being for a good life and future. And the circumstances in a third world country really need our help.
So I started mobilizing people in Germany. We got donations from my friend, a famous German actress called Katerina Jacob, the German honorary consul Mr. Stefan Bührich, one of my business partners in Central Region, Mr. Andreas Schindler and others.
As a constructor I took my friend Simon Cha, the Simon Cha & Associated Company Ltd. Simon, who built already the Orphanage at Sovie for me. It was him, who decided to finish the building on his own costs, when we had a shortage of money in the funding. He was an exceptional personality. Never in Ghana has nobody else done something like that for our organisation. Everybody was al-ways asking for being paid advance. But he had visions too. He finished the building during his serious sickness. Unfortunately, he died some months ago. We will name one of the buildings after him.
But I also have to thank the Paramount Chief of Alavanyo Traditional Area in Volta Region, Togbega Atakora VII. He encouraged me to build this clinic by saying: If you are helping another area then ours, they will help us one day if we might need it, too. As we all know, this way of thinking is not very common in Ghana, because of the poverty, we are having here.
Tribal conflicts and Chieftaincy problems are blocking the development of many areas in Ghana. It has been my intention to do something against it. Julian Adamako, a young, creative Ghanaian au-thor has founded “Youth Speak”, a project to unite the youth of the country. Because of my experi-ences by living in a divided country for a very long time, I brought in the idea of connecting differ-ent areas in Ghana and we are starting with an EWE – ASHANTI project.
The “EWE - ASHANTI Project arose from discussions and interactions that I had with young peo-ple during my interactions with her community in SASA Traditional areas and other parts of the country. The young people I met were totally disillusioned, angry and frustrated by the ethnic ha-tred and tensions being created by some senior politicians and opinion leaders in the country. They were concerned that Ghana was being polarised particularly after last year’s elections thus raising serious concerns and issues about national unity. The Ashantehene and Togbui Agokoli, the Ewe-fiaga, agreed on writing a foreword for the project. We want to expand this project to all other areas in Ghana and to areas, where we are having serious tribal conflicts. If some of you are having ideas for your area to share ideas or to be part of the project, then please let us know. We will connect the youth by poems, art and literature and give them an idea about the cultural background and the history of the other area. Keeping the roots for any individual to my opinion is one of the most important things in life.

I want to end my speech with a Ewe Proverb, which says: If you lose your culture, you lose your soul identity.

We are all Ghanaians, let us unite the country.

Long live Maase, long live Ghana.

May God bless you.

Thank you!

Mamaga Ngoyifiaga Akosua I, Paramountqueen of SASA Traditional Areas