The United Kingdom has released the 2023 New Year Honours list and on it are seven Ghanaian names who are being recognised for services to environmental campaigning, education, architecture, diversity/inclusion and business.
The list, issued by the British king, Charles III, recognises the achievements and service of extraordinary people across the UK.
Professor Lesley Lokko receives an OBE for services to architecture and education.
John Akomfrah
Born in Ghana in 1957, Akomfrah now lives and works in London. His work often explores the experiences of migrant diasporas globally.
Akomfrah’s parents were involved with anti-colonial activism. His mother met Malcolm X in Accra in 1965. His father served in Kwame Nkrumah’s cabinet and never recovered from the turmoil of the 1966 coup. Akomfrah fled Ghana with his parents during the coup.
Among his achievements, he was a founding member of the Black Audio Film Collective, which started in London in 1982 alongside the artists David Lawson and Lina Gopaul. Their first film, Handsworth Songs (1986), explored the events around the 1985 riots in Birmingham and London using archive footage, still photos and newsreel.
In 1997, the trio established award-winning television production company and artist studio Smoking Dogs Films in the East End of London.
For the first Ghana Pavilion during the 58th Venice Biennale in 2019, Akomfrah presented Four Nocturnes (2019), a three-channel piece that explores our destruction of the natural world and the impact of this on humanity.
Rosamund Adoo-Kissi-Debrah
Rosamund Adoo-Kissi-Debrah is the co-founder and chair of the Ella Roberta Foundation – a charity established in the name of Adoo-Kissi-Debrah’s nine-year-old daughter, Ella.
Ella died in 2013 from a severe and rare form of asthma linked to air pollution in London. She became the first person in the UK to have air pollution recorded on her death certificate.
Adoo-Kissi-Debrah becomes a commander of the Order of the British Empire for services to public health in London.
Mavis Maxine Amankwah
The business coach, mentor and diversity communications specialist Mavis Amankwah has been honoured with a medal of the Order of the British Empire for services to business and to entrepreneurship.
Born in Canning Town, east London, on 28 August 1974, Amankwah has helped roughly 800 businesses to grow.
She employs staff that work under her various enterprises, which include Marvel Business Group, Women Like Me, Marvel Recruit, Rich Visions and Mavis Joy Consultancy.
Marvel Business Group provides business support, grants, and funding assistance to businesses, entrepreneurs, and organisations.
She said on her website: “It is a great honour to be recognised for the work that I have been doing over the last two decades, in the local area and across the globe.
“Over the years, I have managed to run multiple businesses and help women and those from the BAME community who may not necessarily have access to information to start, grow and sustain their business, organisations and enterprises.”
Dawid Konotey-Ahulu
Dawid Konotey-Ahulu, the co-founder of the Diversity Project, becomes a Commander of the Order of the British Empire for his services to diversity and inclusion. The Diversity Project promotes more inclusive practices in the investment industry.
Konotey-Ahulu was born in Accra to a Ghanaian doctor and an English nurse who migrated to the UK during the 1979 coup d’état, when he was 16 years old. He studied law at university, went to Bar School, qualified as a barrister and joined Lincoln’s Inn in 1987.
He moved into investment banking in 1990 but left this sector in 2006 to co-found the investment consulting firm Redington.
Jeffery Nii Adjei Tawiah Quaye
Dr Jeffery Quaye is the national director of education and standards for the Aspirations Academies Trust in Dartford, Kent.
He has been honoured for services to education, becoming an Officer of the Order of the British Empire.
Quaye has a PGCE in secondary mathematics and a Master of Arts degree in education.
He was the headteacher for the City of London Academy (Southwark) and has advised the UK government on education policy.
Quaye is a fellow of the Chartered College of Teaching, as well as the College of Teachers UK and the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce.
Maxwell Apaladaga Ayamba
Maxwell Ayamba is an environmental journalist, academic and founder of the Sheffield Environmental Movement (SEM), which promotes access to nature for black, Asian and other ethnic-minority groups, as well as refugee communities.
He has been honoured with a medal of the Order of the British Empire for his services to the environment and the community in Sheffield, South Yorkshire.
In 2004 he established 100 Black Men Walk for Health to help increase access to and participation in the countryside by black, Asian and other minority ethnic groups to promote physical and mental wellness.
Ayamba is a PhD research student in black studies at the University of Nottingham.
Professor Lesley Lokko
Lokko, who is the founder and director of the African Futures Institute in Accra, first began exploring these issues 30 years ago, architectural production, education and criticism were essentially the preserve of men.
Her 2000 book, White Papers, Black Marks: Race, Space and Architecture, pioneered the study of race within architecture and remains one of the most important pieces of work in the field.
Professor Lokko’s ongoing research culminated in her recent appointment as the first-ever black curator of the Venice Architecture Biennale, the most important cultural event in architecture worldwide.
Her biennale, the 18th in the series, will take place in 2023 – only the third to be curated by a woman. She is also only the second Briton to curate the event, following Sir David Chipperfield in 2012.
Lokko was born in Dundee, Scotland, to a Ghanaian father and a Scottish mother and was raised in Ghana.
The New Year Honours list was published on 30 December 2022.
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