Accra Arts & Health Festival ends with landmark creative-health milestones
The inaugural Accra Arts & Health Festival 2026 has ended with a series of landmark achievements aimed at reshaping Ghana’s creative-health landscape and creating new pathways for integrating arts, culture and creativity into healthcare, education and community wellbeing.
Inspired by the Global South Arts & Health Initiative, founded by the Global Arts in Medicine Fellowship (GAIMF), the festival brought together artists, researchers, public health professionals, wellbeing advocates, cultural producers, policymakers, innovators, practitioners, community leaders and residents of Accra to explore how creative expression can contribute to healthier, more connected and resilient communities.
The festival was produced by GAIMF in collaboration with Knutsford University, British Council Accra, Young Leaders for Arts and Health, and the National Health Students’ Association of Ghana (NAHSAG).
One of the festival’s major milestones was the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between Knutsford University and GAIMF to co-develop Ghana’s first Creative Health Curriculum for nursing students.
The partnership will introduce arts-based approaches, creative wellbeing practices and experiential learning into nursing education, equipping future nurses with additional tools to address the physical, emotional and psychosocial needs of patients.
Professor Anthony Kwame Ahiawodzi, Vice Chancellor of Knutsford University, described the partnership as an important step towards strengthening patient-centred healthcare education.
“The goal of this collaboration is to introduce a new dimension to our Nursing programme by integrating Creative Health and Arts in Medicine training into our curriculum,” he said.
He said students would gain experiential learning in the use of visual arts, music, drama, movement and storytelling as tools for healing and wellbeing.
“We believe this will empower our nurses to deliver patient-centred care that addresses both the physical and emotional dimensions of health,” Professor Ahiawodzi added.
He noted that the collaboration would position Knutsford University as a pioneer in arts-in-health education while creating opportunities for international engagement and research.
Another major achievement was the designation of the Accra Art District as Africa’s first Creative Health Corridor.
The initiative will also provide opportunities for artists, health professionals, researchers and communities to collaborate on mental, emotional, social and environmental wellbeing.
Through GAIMF, the festival invested more than GH₵100,000 in scholarships for early-career researchers, professionals and students.
The scholarships are intended to expand access to global creative-health training and professional development programmes while supporting the development of a new generation of practitioners and researchers working across the arts, health, education and community development sectors.
Youth creativity also featured prominently through the national pilot of Health Students Got Talents, which provided young people with a platform to use creativity for advocacy, public health communication and social impact.
Three finalists emerged as national creative-health ambassadors, demonstrating the potential of young health professionals to communicate complex health issues through creative approaches.
Medical students from the University of Ghana also co-designed three creative-health pilot projects, reflecting growing interest in interdisciplinary approaches to medical education.
For the first time in Ghana, the festival also hosted the GRACE-Epi Workshop, an arts and health research programme supported by the Wellcome Discovery Award and led by the University of Glasgow, alongside Malawi Epidemiology Intervention Research Unit (MEIRU) and University College London.
Dr Kunle Adewale, Chair and Global Development Lead of the Global South Arts & Health Initiative, described the festival as an important milestone for Ghana and the wider Global South.
“The Accra Arts & Health Festival 2026 inaugural edition stands as a milestone in Ghana’s cultural and health landscape,” he said, adding that it demonstrated how creativity could transform communities, strengthen wellbeing and shape the future of public health.
BY TIMES REPORTER
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