By Hafsa Obeng
Accra, Nov. 16, GNA – The No Limit Charity Organisation (NLCO), in partnership with Changing African Lives Foundation (CALF) and SOS Advance, has opened the first ever Ga Mashie 360 Learning Centre for children within the Ga Mashie area in Accra.
The 30-seater capacity Centre, which comprises a library, an ICT Centre and a vocational skills training centre, is aimed at helping children within the community to develop the habit of reading, enhance their ICT as well as vocational skills.
Madam Rita Esionam Garglo, Executive Director, NLCO, said the passion to support children, especially in Jamestown, was driven by the fact that she grew up in the community and noticed children in that part of Accra did not value education.
She said, “even though things were not that smooth for me, I was able to go through school, and I feel like giving back to society should be one of my priority, so that has always motivated me to encourage other children especially girls in this community to go to school.”
She said the learning Centre was meant to help the children to read, do their homework, train them on the basics of ICT for both children and the elderly.
“From 0800 hours to 1700 hours, children can pass through and the elderly who want to use the space for research can come from 1700 to 1900. We want to have everyone in the community involved in this project. The vocational skills training centre too would open for all young people to learn beadmaking, make up, decoration, sewing, hairdressing among others.”
Madam Garglo noted that there were many young people in the community without jobs and skills and the centre would provide the opportunity to acquire these skills.
She said the ICT and Skills training would be partially free with some little contributions from beneficiaries.
“We will charge a maximum of GHc 200.00 for the ICT training and SOS Advance will provide scholarship for three brilliant but needy children to undergo the training.”
She said the ICT training would be for a month and the vocational training three years in collaboration with other professionals in the community.
“We want to change the negative perception about Jamestown and let people know that the community is made up of great people. So we will go ahead to sensitize them on the need to read and learn a trade after school.”
Madam Garglo expressed appreciation to her sponsors for the support and appealed to other corporate entities to support her to be able to empower more children and get some of them back to school.
She encouraged parents to give birth to the number of children they could adequately cater for.
“The number of teenage pregnancy in Jamestown is out of hand so we encourage young people to utilize the space if they do not have anything they enjoy at home. They can come and read so that it would take off their mind from small boys getting them pregnant.”
Mr Mark Polack, Chairman, CALF, said coming into contact with the Executive Director of the Centre, four years ago inspired his outfit to support her in the various social activities she was engaged in, in the community.
He said as an African-American from the Caribbean’s where millions of slaves were sent to through Jamestown, it was heart warming to come home to sew a seed back home.
“So for a Centre like this, we are happy to work with the NLCO to change lives. We work in different areas in Africa where we find there are issues and we can get involved to be part of the solution.”
Mr Polack said even though the Centre was not a big place, it was a resource that people could come and use at anytime.
“Children as well as disabled children who are not able to go to school can come in and learn and adults can also come and acquire literary skills.The library is full of many books from a six year old who is able to read and an adult who wants to understand the world better.”
The Chairman noted that they had plans of working in the community, so for the vocational skills training, they would work with hairdressers, seamstress or designers in the community and have children allocated to them so they would get the skills, but that would be handled from the Centre.
“I would like to see the library full of children getting the benefits and utilizing it and once we see that this is working out effectively we will engage in other initiatives like farming, construction for children who are not academically inclined.”
Madam Mercy Odoi, Sub Metro Director, Ashiedy Keteke, Accra Metropolitan Assembly, lauded the organisation for the initiative, saying the Assembly also had plans of similar initiatives and as such would provide them with the needed support to be able to touch many lives.
She encouraged children within the community to visit the centre regularly and make good use of all the facilities to change their fortunes, saying such opportunities were rare in some communities.
NLCO is a non-profit organisation established to support the education, personal development and well being of poor and vulnerable children in Jamestown and other deprived communities in Accra.
GNA