A Man and His Seven Children Dagbani Folktale

This is a collection of folktales in Dagbani, Kusaal and Dagbani, three Mabia-speaking languages, from rural communities in Nothern, Upper East and West Regions of Ghana. The folktales were collected by the researchers in a month-long ethnographic study that explored the cultural philosophies of the people using their oral narratives, including community discussions with community members. The narratives provide valuable insights into local perspectives on gender related issues, highlighting both the persistence of inequality and the potential for social transformation. They underscore the importance of empowering marginalized groups, while encouraging broader community awareness of the need to treat everyone with respect and dignity, including persons with disability. The folktales in this collection were shared by community members as part of a research project, Sustainable gender equality, diversity and social inclusion through oral narratives in Mabia cultures of Ghana with funding from (S-GEDS) funded by OeAD GmbH – Austria’s Agency for Education and Internationalisation. These narratives reflect communal values, norms, and practices, and reveal deeply embedded gendered meanings and ideologied, often with unintended implications. While dominant representations reinforce gender inequalities, the moral frameworks embedded within sometimes depict consequences for injustices and emphasize the need to protect, and respect, and treat everyone with dignity, including persons with disabilities. The project contributes to the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4, particularly, targets 4.6 and 4.7, which promote literacy and numeracy, cultural diversity and culture's contribution to sustainable development. Thus, aproject desprppthe collected and transcribed folktales tell stories of the culture and world views of speakers of these languages. Any future production of basic school primers from these folktales will enhance literacy in the mother tongue of both children and adults. Generally, the success of this project feeds into the mission of the Africa UniNet, University of Ghana, University for Development Studies and the University of Vienna which seeks to conduct cutting edge research aimed at enhancing the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals relevant to both national and global development.