Esi Sutherland-Addy

Last updated

Esi Sutherland-Addy
Born
Esi Reiter Sutherland

Ghana
NationalityGhanaian
Education Achimota School
Occupation(s)Academic, writer, educationalist, and human rights activist
Organization(s) Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana
Parent(s) Efua Sutherland and Bill Sutherland

Esi Sutherland-Addy is a Ghanaian academic, writer, educationalist, and human rights activist. She is a professor at the Institute of African Studies, where she has been senior research fellow, head of the Language, Literature, and Drama Section, and associate director of the African Humanities Institute Program at the University of Ghana. She is credited with more than 60 publications in the areas of education policy, higher education, female education, literature, theatre and culture, [1] and serves on numerous committees, boards and commissions locally and internationally. [2] She is the first daughter of writer and cultural activist Efua Sutherland. [3] [4]

Contents

Biography

Born in Ghana as Esi Reiter Sutherland, she is the eldest of the three children [5] of playwright and cultural activist Efua Sutherland and African-American Bill Sutherland (1918–2010), [6] a colonial civil rights activist who went to Ghana in 1953 on the recommendation of George Padmore to Kwame Nkrumah. [7] She was educated at St. Monica's Secondary School, Mampong and Achimota School (where she met her husband). [7]

She has held various positions at educational establishments in Europe and the US, which includes being a Senior Fellow at the Institute of International Education at Manchester University, UK, and as visiting lecturer at the following universities: University of Indiana, Bloomington, USA, the Centre for African Studies, New York University Accra Campus, University of Birmingham, UK, and L'Institut des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris, France. [8] [9]

She served with the Ghana government as Deputy Minister for Higher Education, Culture and Tourism from (1986–93) and from 1994 to 1995 as Minister of Education and Culture. [8] She has undertaken studies particularly in the field of education for many international organizations including UNESCO, UNICEF, the World Bank and the Association for the Development of Education in Africa. [10] She has been on both local and global boards with companies such as Ghana Commercial Bank, Open Society for West Africa, and  The Commonwealth of Learning.

She has also held key roles in non-governmental organizations and she has been on the executive board of the Forum for African Women Educationalists (FAWE) [11] and the Mmofra Foundation. [12]

At the moment, Esi works with institute of African studies at the University of Ghana and is spearheading a project called Oral Traditions and Expressive Diversity  involving the collection and digitization of Ghanaian Oral Traditions. She also supervise postgraduate students. [13]

She serves as the  Chairperson of the following entities :

Board of Trustees of the Voluntary Fund for Technical Cooperation of the United Nations High Commission for Human Rights.

The Forum of African Women Educationalists (Ghana) and

Afram Publications Ghana Ltd. [9]

Awards

Esi Sutherland-Addy has been the recipient of several awards which includes the following:

An Honorary Fellowship of the College of Preceptors, UK (1998),

A Group Award by the Rockefeller Foundation (2001 and 2002) for the Women Writing Africa Project,

An Honorary Doctorate of Letters from the University of Education, Winneba (2004), and

the Excellence in Distance Education Award from the Commonwealth of Learning (2008). [7] [10]

Ghana Tourism Authority 20th Anniversary Emancipation Day Award (2018) [9]

Selected bibliography

Editor
Papers

Further reading

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References

  1. ↑ Kofi Akosah-Sarpong, "Integrating and Differentiating the Enlightenment Voices", Newstime Africa, 12 April 2012.
  2. ↑ "Faculty", New York University.
  3. ↑ "The Legacy of Efua Sutherland: Pan–African Cultural Activism" Archived 7 July 2019 at the Wayback Machine , Ayebia Clarke Publishing.
  4. ↑ "Why Efua Sutherland Park was named after my mother - Daughter speaks". GhanaWeb. 18 August 2020. Retrieved 28 September 2023.
  5. ↑ Kwekudee, "Efua T Sutherland: Africa's Female Pioneer Dramatist, Cultural Visionary and Activist and "Black Africa's Most Famous Woman Writer", Trip Down Memory Lane, 2 October 2014.
  6. ↑ Esi Sutherland-Addy, Ralph Sutherland, Amowi Sutherland Phillips and Matt Meyer, "Bill Sutherland, Pan-African pacifist", Pambazuka News , 14 January 2010.
  7. 1 2 3 "Efua Sutherland-Addy — Associate Professor", Institute of African Studies. Archived 11 August 2015 at the Wayback Machine .
  8. 1 2 Genevieve Ruha, "Dr. Esi Sutherland-Addy", Ghana Nation, 17 September 2013. Archived 28 April 2016 at the Wayback Machine .
  9. 1 2 3 "Dr Esi Sutherland". WeRuS. Retrieved 29 September 2023.
  10. 1 2 Members of the Board of Trustees, Voluntary Fund for Technical Cooperation in the Field of Human Rights, Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.
  11. ↑ "General Assembly" Archived 24 October 2017 at the Wayback Machine , FAWE.
  12. ↑ "Board of Directors" Archived 28 March 2022 at the Wayback Machine , Mmofra Foundation.
  13. ↑ "Professor Esi Sutherland-Addy | Institute of African Studies | University of Ghana". ias.ug.edu.gh. Retrieved 28 September 2023.
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