UR business professor Tenace Setor helped CGE secure Ghanaian hiplife artist Kwaw Kese to perform for an audience at the Current on Nov. 18.

Rhetoric & Communication Instructor Ignatius Suglo had a connection to guest speaker Wunpini Mohammed, an assistant professor in the Department of Communication at Cornell University. The two grew up in the same town (Tamale) and both attended the University of Ghana, but they had never met in person until they were both in the U.S., working in higher education.

Mohammed spoke to a packed room on “Challenging African Stereotypes One Story at a Time.”  She told the audience that the media tends to focus on Africa as a continent rife with disaster, war, and famine, adding that Black characters in movies are too often pushed to the periphery and depicted without complexity or nuance, and that many believed that the global market was not interested in their stories.

“Black Panther disrupted this notion,” Mohammed said, referring to the 2018 film with a predominantly Black cast that brought in over $1.3 billion worldwide. “The movie presented Africa in dignified ways.”

Other speakers addressed climate change and included a new generation of health leaders focused on justice and rights in the country.

“It is my hope that people approach Ghana, like any other country, as rich in diverse peoples, cultures, experiences, and realities and come away with the sensibilities to engage with cultures other than their own in a nuanced way and with the care they deserve,” Suglo said.

Educated at the IEW Fair

At the IEW Fair, Ghanaian students shared information about their country, which has a population of 31 million. The West African nation’s terrain includes palm-tree-lined beaches, tropical rainforests, the world’s largest artificial lake, and a savanna region. The government has long worked toward universal education, which it considers key to development. There are six public universities in the country.

Those who attended the Fair learned about Richmond’s Semester in Ghana study abroad program, kente cloth designs, the UR student Ngoma African Dance Company, which celebrated its 30th anniversary last year, and children’s books set in Africa, including Anansi the Spider: A Tale from the Ashanti, a Caldecott-winning picture book by Gerald McDermott.

Sophomores Julia Messerman and Callia Nickels shared the research they conducted with health studies professor Nigel James on training community health nurses as liaisons to improve breast cancer screening rates in Ghana. James and his research team recently received the 2025 American Public Health Association Cancer Forum Global Health Award for the research done in collaboration with the University of Ghana.

“In many rural areas of Ghana, there’s still a lot of discomfort and stigma around breast screenings,” said Messerman, a health studies and psychology double major. “Working with trusted community nurses helps women feel more comfortable and willing to participate.”

Tastes like home

Later in the evening, the Heilman Dining Center served dinner using Ghanaian recipes. The IEW Dinner usually hosts 2,000 people each year.

Main dishes included jollof rice, angwa moo, and chichinga, a food kebab. The dessert trays featured iloka Ghanaian milk candy, Malva pudding with pickled apricot, and gluten-free brownies drizzled with Ghanaian chocolate.

To ensure authenticity, students and faculty from Ghana provided guidance on the dishes and decor.

Drummers welcomed diners into the festive atmosphere, set amid displays of kente cloth and maps.

“The energy around the Ghana Fair and the D-Hall dinner afterwards was incredible,” Merritt said. “I loved seeing our community dive into learning and then dive into the food.”