Kate Victoria Teiba Abbam, born Ewura Ekua Badoe (24 October 1934 – May 2016) was a Ghanaian journalist, editor and consultant on women and development.Edmund Quaynor

, ''

Ghana News Agency The Ghana News Agency (GNA) is the official news agency of the country of Ghana. It was founded in 1957 by President Kwame Nkrumah, Mr. Donald Wright, who was seconded by the Reuters News Agency set up the Ghana News Agency and in 1961 President N ...

'', 28 July 2016. Abbam founded Ghana's first women's magazine, ''Obaa Sima'' ("The Ideal Woman"), in 1971.

Life

Awura Ekuwa Badoe was born on 24 October 1934 in

Cape Coast Cape Coast is a city, fishing port, and the capital of Cape Coast Metropolitan District and Central Region of Ghana. It is one of the country's most historic cities, a World Heritage Site, home to the Cape Coast Castle, with the Gulf of Guinea ...

. She was given a Christian education, and renamed Kate Victoria, at Saint Monica's Convent, Cape Coast, Mmofraturo School in Kumasi, the A. M. E. Zion School in Cape Coast and Wesley Girls' High School in Cape Coast. She won a Ghana government scholarship to read for a degree in Home Science at

Queen Elizabeth College Queen Elizabeth College (QEC) was a college in London. It had its origins in the Ladies' (later Women's) Department of King's College, London, England, opened in 1885 but later accepted men as well. The first King's 'extension' lectures for l ...

in London. She then studied General Science at

University of Ghana, Legon The University of Ghana is a public university located in Accra, Ghana. It the oldest and largest of the thirteen Ghanaian national public universities. The university was founded in 1948 as the University College of the Gold Coast in the B ...

. She married Emmanuel Atta Abbam in 1964. From 1964 to 1969 she worked at the Food Research Institute, analysing food and food products. Kate Abbam founded ''Obaa Sima'' as a monthly magazine in 1971. The name, she later explained in an interview, referred to "a woman who is industrious and helps her community... women are called ' ''obaa sima'' ' when they have made it through their own efforts – it is the embodiment of the traditional woman". Abbam was owner, editor and principal contributor to the magazine. Her novelette ''Beloved Twin'', for example, was serialized there in 1971–2. In July 1972, Abbam's husband died, leaving her with small children. She wrote about her treatment as a widow, summarily dispossessed by her husband's family, in ''Obaa Sima''. In 1975 she was awarded a United Nations fellowship to attend the World Conference on Women in Mexico City, reviewing the place of Ghanaian women in the mass media.Abbam, "Ghanaian Women in the Mass Media", unpublished paper written for International Women's Year, 1975. Cited in Margaret Gallagher
''Unequal Opportunities: The Case of Women and the Media''
, UNESCO, 1981. In 1993, she was enstooled

Queenmother Queen mother (also Queenmother) is a term used to describe certain female traditional rulers in African cultures. Though there is no general description of a "queen mother", as their roles have varied by society, political context, and culture, ...

of the Anona clan in the Ekumfi Eyisam in the Central Region, making her Nana Assanwa Ewudziwa Gyampaafor II. She died in May 2016. Her niece is the writer Adwoa Badoe.

Works

* ''Sweet Deceit'' * (as Awura-Ekuwa Badoe) ''Beloved Twin'', Scorpio Books Ghana, 1973 * (as Ekuwa Teima Badoe) ''I Shall Return: romance from the woods''. 1975

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Abbam, Kate 1934 births 2016 deaths 20th-century Ghanaian women writers 21st-century Ghanaian women writers 20th-century Ghanaian journalists Ghanaian editors Ghanaian women editors 21st-century Ghanaian journalists 20th-century Ghanaian women journalists 21st-century Ghanaian women journalists