NGOs support 75 children and trainees
The Empowerment Centre of Women and Children (ECWC) has collaborated with the Ghana Non-governmental Organisations (NGOs) Coalition on the Rights of the Child and PLAN-Ghana to present various items to schoolchildren and vocational trainees in the Kwabre East District in the Ashanti Region.
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Eighteen vocational trainees were presented with sewing machines, while 15 schoolchildren received school uniforms, with the remaining 42 receiving school bags.
This formed part of a project being undertaken and implemented by ECWC in five communities in the district, namely – Asonomaso Nkwanta, Mamponteng, Kassem, Kenyase Abirem and Adwumam Manhyia.
At the presentation ceremony, the National President of Ghana NGOs Coalition on the Rights of the Child, Mrs Josephine Konadu Koduah, urged the beneficiaries to concentrate on their education and skills training and use the items for the betterment of their future, adding that those learning vocations should take their training seriously to build a better future.
Skills development
She emphasised the essence of skills development and advised families of the children to support them to make it in life and also give them the needed supervision to desist from social vices.
The Executive Director of ECWC, Madam Aminata Ibrahim, decried the challenges confronting needy children in the area, and said since the government could not undertake such programmes alone, the initiative by the organisation was a step in the right direction.
For her part, the District Director of the Department of Social Welfare, Mrs Agnes Boakyewaa, advised parents to exercise strict parental control over their children, stressing that child neglect was a contributory factor for cases of teenage pregnancy in the area.
She indicated that in the last quarter of 2014, 28 cases of teenage pregnancy were recorded in the area, with 13 per cent of the teenage mothers returning to school, and the rest becoming school dropouts.
She, however, said her office was working closely with NGOs, the Ghana Education Service (GES) and the Child Protection Committee of the district assembly to address the issue of teenage pregnancy in the area and, therefore, urged parents in the area to support that cause.