Ms Amankwah, who writes for the Accra-Ghana based Public Agenda, a private newspaper, beat three other competitors from Ghana to secure the award and spent three months at the Voksenaasen centre in Oslo, Norway to discuss and share ideas on development issues.
The scholarship, established in honour of Ragnar Sohlman is to support promising female youths in development work and to serve as a source of information exchange. It is jointly set up by Voksenåsen and The Swedish-Norwegian Cooperation Fund, and administered by the Dag Hammarskjold Program.
Ragnar Sohlman was a young Swedish chemical engineer who had worked for Alfred Nobel, the founder of the Nobel Prize Foundation. Ragnar is reported to have been Alfred Nobel’s most trusted friend and it was on his shoulders that the Nobel Prize Foundation was established.
Born some 29 years ago in Kumasi, precisely on January 15, 1980 to Madam Cecilia Brobbey and Mr. Charles Amankwah, deceased, Ama holds a Diploma in Journalism from the Ghana Institute of Journalism. Personal interest and the desire to influence public policy in favour of the poor, the marginalized and socially excluded groups are what have driven her to remain a journalist.
Ama did one year National Service with the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation Radio Newsroom (Accra), has worked with the Metropolitan Entertainment TV and currently with the Public Agenda newspaper about five years ago as a Staff Writer, and has had the opportunity to undergo several professional training programmes, like the two-month training programm in Berlin – Germany on Economic and Financial Reporting, sponsored by the International Institute for Journalism (IIJ) of InWEnt. She is a member of the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA), and an alumnus of the Reuters Foundation, UK.
She began her education at the State Experimental Primary School in 1986 in Kumasi, completing her Junior High School education in same school nine years later in 1994 and proceeded to the St. Louis Senior High School in Kumasi for her three-year Senior High education in 1995.
“It was an exciting moment for me. The opportunity could not have come at a better time. I am in my ninth year in the practice of development Journalism and the yearning to get to learn and share new ideas about how the world could be made a better place for humanity is growing in me each passing day. The award was the door I had been knocking. And I am excited to be among the first recipients of the Ragnar Sohlman award,” was how Ama described her excitement when it was announced to her that she had won the award.
I feel I have a great responsibility to contribute my quota to the democratic and socio-economic development of my country. Thus, after graduating in 2001, I have pursued this desire with all the effort and facilities at my disposal. I believe that all has not been in vain. As a professional journalist I deem it responsible to report the facts of a situation and to leave my readers to draw their own conclusions.
When asked to assess the media landscape in Ghana, Ama acknowledged that it has been “highly competitive. There are numerous newspapers with new ones emerging each passing day.” She however has a worry: “Most do political stories in order to sell. Political stories dominate the content of the Ghanaian media.
“Most practitioners hold the view that only political stories sell or make the headlines. Others have also resorted to attacking personalities especially politicians and people in public life. This has become a matter of great concern to the public and journalists are losing their credibility and respect. Having chosen journalism as a career and profession and as a citizen who believes that journalism can provide the information, education and entertainment that society needs to grow, I worry most about these developments in the media.
She is however positive that in spite of these negative developments in journalism in Ghana, it remains one of the most vibrant professions with practitioners operating in total freedom.
“With the repeal of the criminal libel law, though it has never really been an issue, I think that journalists should never lose sight of the legal issues involved in journalism. I believe as a journalist, I can still make a difference in what I do. I can make a difference whether large and small, in ways seen and unseen, in the lives of millions in the nation, throughout Africa and around the world. And all of us should recognize this important space in the practice of the profession,” she urges.
Unlike the rests, the paper she works for; the Public Agenda newspaper, Ghana’s only rights based advocacy bi-weekly, has stayed focused on the real issues since its establishment in 1995. “We continue to critique policies and expose policy impacts on the poor and the vulnerable in society with the view of creating a just society in which all rights are respected and protected,” she alludes with pride and broad smiles.
Beyond journalism, Ama wants to become a human rights lawyer in the future. “I can see myself doing a number of other things later in life. But I am sure I will still be writing since professional journalists never die,” she forecasts.
Ama is a staunch Catholic. Having lost her Dad at a very young age and being raised by a single mother, Ama believes it is the Almighty God that has been the hand behind her modest achievements despite a not so smooth journey in life.
Ama laughs a lot because she believes “laughter is the best medicine that calms,” her, “as I try to look at things from a different perspective. I do get upset but I try to control myself.
Ama is currently the Secretary General of the West Africa Network of Journalists on Peace building (WANJOP), an infant association formed by journalists from 15 West African countries. WANJOP will be launched in Ghana later this year. She is married to Kwaku Agyei Baafi.
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