WFP supports flood volunteers
The World Food Programme (WFP) has rewarded five people for their volunteering services during the flooding of parts of the Volta Region.
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The beneficiaries comprise a teacher, two senior high school (SHS) students and a further two primary school pupils who rendered volunteering services at the St Kizito safe haven.
The senior high school students and the teacher received laptop, smart phone and basic dignity kits each, while the pupils received exercise books, cash and other educational materials.
A team from WFP, led by the Country Director, Barbara Clemens, made the presentation in Accra.
The Member of Parliament for North Tongu, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, led the team that received the items.
Mrs Clemens said the organisation aimed to provide financial assistance to the students at the end of the crisis to assist in the recovery efforts to build a resilience in the future.
She said as the chair of the Interagency Working Group on emergency they had made several trips to provide humanitarian assistance to the people in the affected areas.
“It was there I met these two young ladies who were voluntarily holding classes with two groups of students.
I was impressed on how they had ordered those kids to sitting down and they were truly learning.
So we decided to support them,” she added.
She said the items would help the students with their tuition for their next semester and to them financially literate hence emphasised on the need for learners to have access to continuous, equitable, inclusive education especially during emergency situations.
She said the interagency working group had assisted NADMO with structural assessments of the buildings to provide a safe and conducive environment for the people.
Appreciation
Mr Okudzeto Ablakwa expressed his appreciation to the donors for their kind gesture.
He said they aimed to construct an alternative housing project that would help move the people out of the camps to to avoid any further outbreak of diseases.
Mr Ablakwa said they had done a structural integrity assessment of the buildings to assist the people however about 1500 houses remain damaged with some people in the displaced camps.
He said in partnership with First Sky Groupe, they had constructed a 300 capacity housing to bring relief to the displaced members of his constituency adding that “so we have relocated about 300 people out of Mepe St. Kizito High School.”
Mr Okudzeto Ablakwa said the housing project would bring respite to the people of his constituency if completed hence appealed to individuals, philanthropists and corporate organizations to support the construction of a second capacity housing for the people.
Ablakwa added that the elders and people of his constituency have made lands available free of charge for the project saying,”this would ensure the people live in much healthier conditions, and free schools used as safe havens so our children can return to school.”
“I have also helped to support 50 of the most affected students with full scholarship to go back to the universities and paid six months rent for 160 Teachers so they can come back and teach their students,” he added.
Victims
The spillage of the two dams by the Volta River Authority (VRA), which commenced on September 15, 2023, to prevent the dams from collapsing, submerged several homes and farmlands, displacing over 36,000 people.
Weeks after schools reopened, many learners in the North Tongu District of the Volta Region still have no access to their classrooms.
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Some now attend classes under trees and others under tents because their classrooms still serve as safe havens for people displaced by the floods.
There were about 14,704 learners in basic and SHSs in the district before the floods, but a little over 9,000 are back in school.