Africa-Press – Ghana. There is a saying in Ghana, Mama Cee tells me, that goes something like this: “The parents look after the young when they cut their teeth and the young look after the parents when they lose theirs.”
That latter part has perhaps never been truer, at least here in Hamilton among the city’s prominent Ghanian community, than during the last two years of COVID-19 lockdown and pandemic response.
Mama Cee is actually Comfort Afari. That’s another thing, Mama Cee tells me, about Ghanian culture. They love nicknames and that’s hers — Mama Cee.
Mama Cee and Barb Anie met with me recently to talk about the inspired, creative and thorough work being done, especially around COVID need in the community, by the Ghana Association of Hamilton, of which Mama Cee is president and Barb is a member.
There are, by the association’s estimate, about 5,000 Ghanian-Canadians in the city, and you don’t have to look very far to discern the contribution they’ve made to this city. The late Dora Anie, for instance, Barb’s mother, was a member of the Ghana Association, and the association always supported the work she did, furthering international ties between Hamilton and education in Ghana with her Schools of Dreams and A Taste of Africa events. These continue today, largely under the leadership of Barb who, like her mother, is a member of the Ghana Association.
The spirited Ghanian community here is a key part of the growing African profile in Hamilton’s Black population, in which those of Caribbean origin have traditionally predominated. As Mama Cee points out, there are now in Hamilton sizeable and growing communities of those from countries like the Ivory Coast, Burundi, Nigeria, Somalia and Cameroon.Especially during unsettled times such as COVID has been, people often fall back on the communities they know best, and so, with that in mind, Mama Cee, Barb and the association put in place a culturally sensitive plan of action.
“Personally, through my professional experience as a social worker, I was aware of the loneliness and isolation that many feel, especially seniors, especially among immigrants,” says Momma Cee, who has a Master’s degree in social work from McMaster and works as a counsellor at Conestoga College.
“We recognized early on that we have to acknowledge the contribution of our seniors in the building the community, and the last thing we wanted was for them to feel like they were forgotten.”
Barb says the association has reached between 70 and 75 Ghanian seniors (65 and over) in Hamilton and most of them were immigrants, born in Ghana, as was Mama Cee, who came to Canada (B.C.) in1986 and to Hamilton first in 1997 for a time before she and her husband worked overseas and then again, permanently in 2008.
They know how many Ghanian-Canadians there are here because part of the association’s larger effort was putting together a databank. The databank, like so many other planks of the association’s integrated response, was partly made possible by a grant they obtained totalling $25,000 through the Hamilton Community Foundation’s Pandemic Response Fund.
The association’s “Honouring Our Elders Project” took effect last September and features four principal pillars — a seniors buddy transportation program; a seniors’ day program; food provision program; technology device program.“The focus for the initiative is to serve Ghanaian seniors in the community in culturally appropriate ways with issues that they face such as isolation and mental health that has only been heightened due to COVID-19,” says Mama Cee.
The very first step the association took, Phase 1, was to furnish the seniors with personal protective equipment
Beyond that, the idea was to keep the community (especially vulnerable seniors) connected in every meaningful way: Socially (through visits, including hair appointments, coffee dates, places of worship and excursions, lockdowns allowing, with volunteer pickups and drop-offs); technologically (the association provided 29 seniors with 10.5 Samsun Galaxy tablets); physically (through online fitness, yoga and exercise programs); nutritionally (through the food provision program, seniors got vouchers redeemable at any of the Ghanaian-owned stores — Rama Tropical, Mama Africa Tropical Afrocan Caribbean Tropical Grocers Inc.) and psychologically (shared information about and access to mental health resources).
“The first thing I did when I came to Hamilton,” says Mama Cee, “was seek out a Ghanian space,” whether that be an association or a church. So when she was rooted here she joined the association. Now she is president.
Says Barb, “So many great things have happened under her leadership.”
Indeed, what the association is doing is a kind of model for how to keep communities of all kinds connected, especially with their seniors and vulnerable populations — connected and mutually supportive.
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