Youth Home is an area in central Tamale, where the youth (or anybody interested) can come and engage themselves in different activities as basketball, volleyball, taekwondo and traditional dance and drumming and traditional handicraft. Youth Home is situated in the town centre, and is visited by many children, youngsters and adults every day. The atmosphere is warm and friendly, and everybody is welcome.

The music activities takes place on a big stage behind the “clubhouse”, which consists of several rooms, where the members keep instruments, warm up, dress for performances etc. The area, the stage and the clubhouse are owned by The National Youth Council. In one part of the clubhouse there is a church. The church is doing services every Sunday.

18 years ago The National Youth Council accepted that a few musicians from Centre for National Culture in Tamale could use the place for rehearsals, and through this Youth Home Cultural Group was established. The group is practically a dance- and drumming school, where all who has the interest and can meet regularly and are serious are welcome.

The members of the group meet from Monday to Friday 15.30 to 18.00 and are trained by the leaders. The leaders are three local musicians and dancers plus some old group-members who by and then acts as instructors and guest teachers. The leaders of the group work unpaid, and have done this for several years.

Currently around 30 boys and girls from 10 to 35 years of age come every day to train music and dance at Youth Home. The place is often visited by tourists and students from abroad and many local people pass by every day to have a look at the cultural activities.

The group performs whenever they are requested. In average three or four times a month. Some of the former members of YHCG has achieved job as dance- and drumming teachers in local schools, based on skills achieved in Youth Home Cultural Group. Several former members also work as dancers at National Theatre in Accra. During the years many people has learned traditional music and dance in this group. Some has travelled abroad to work as dance-teachers and some continue their music studies at university-level in Ghana as well as abroad.

By 1. of June 2006 YHCG received a funding from The Royal Danish Embassy in order to develop and strengthen the already ongoing activities by - among many other things – 1) Building better facilities for the group (rehearsal- and performance-stage and clubhouse); 2) Offer three additional handicraft-activities with relation to drumming and dancing (that is smock sewing, drum-making and tailoring); 3) Advertise for the group in order to inform the local people as well as tourists and visitors about our activities.

We believe and expect YHGC to play a crucial role in the preservation, developing and presentation of culture from Tamale and Dagbon as such in the future. The two coming years will be important in this aspect as we will celebrate Ghana’s 50 year anniversaries for liberty this year and as we expect more than 40.000 visitors to Tamale to watch the African Cup in 2008.