Increase mobile van services; Ghana Library Authority urged

The Sunyani Area Secretary of the Apostolic Church Ghana (PCG), Mr Kwabena Obeng-Asare, has urged the Ghana Library Authority (GLA) to scale up its mobile library van (MLV) services in communities to help motivate pupils and students to study while staying at home because of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

According to him, it was necessary for the authority to procure more library vans to move across the country, especially in rural communities to create opportunity for students to read.

Mr Obeng-Asare was speaking to the Daily Graphic when the leadership of the National Women’s Movement of the church donated assorted goods, including sanitary items worth GH¢20, 000 to the Sunyani Female Prison in the Bono Region.

He called on benevolent individuals, organisations and churches to partner with the authority by releasing funds and logistics such as vehicles to help roll out the mobile library service, explaining that the authority and the government alone could not implement the programme across the country.

Items

The items donated included bags of rice, gallons of cooking oil, cartons of tinned tomatoes, 230 mini gallons of hand sanitiser, 110 packets of toilet roll, five cartons of sanitary pads, 100 pieces of nose masks and 10 Veronica buckets.

The donation was to support the female inmates with food and sanitary items to prevent them from contracting and spreading the COVID-19.

Online studies

Mr Obeng-Asare explained that the introduction of online studies though good, would only benefit pupils and students in cities and urban areas, adding that the system would not give equal opportunity to students, especially those in remote areas due to poor network.

“I don’t think the introduction of online studies by various educational institutions is going to benefit all students, because, in Ghana, the telecommunications network is bad, especially in remote areas,” he stated.

Presentation

Presenting the items, the National Women’s Movement Leader of the church, Deaconess Theodora Owusu Asubonteng, explained that the donation formed part of the church's mandatory service to support the less privileged in society.

Deaconess Asubonteng encouraged women in the church to take up the COVID-19 precautionary education to their various homes and marketplaces to help increase public awareness on the need to observe the protocols.

For her part, the Second-in-Command of the Sunyani Female Prison, DSP Mary Asante-Sarfo, who received the items thanked the Women’s Movement for the donation, explaining that the donation came at the time that the facility needed them.

She mentioned stigmatisation, rejection of family members and the lack of sanitary items as some of the challenges facing the inmates and called on the public to support the facility to bring relief to the inmates.

DSP Asante-Sarfo also called on the public to support the facility's vocational centre with logistics and materials to help it produce more local products.