By Bertha Badu-Agyei
Akyem-Agyapomaa, Dec 6, GNA – The chiefs and people of six farming communities in the Abuakwa South Municipality, have commended The Hunger Project Ghana (THP-Ghana), for their social intervention projects, which have improved the living conditions of the people.
THP-GHANA as part of its operation through the epicenter strategy, provided an epicenter at Agyapomaa, which comprised of a clinic, a day care center, nurses staff quarters and a micro finance centre as well as women empowerment-based programmes to improve the living conditions of people in the area.
The communities are Agyapomaa, Boateh, Adwomoku, Pechi, Atwemamena and Aboabo, all near Akyem-Asafo in the Abuakwa South municipality, with Agyapomaa being the lead of the epicenter cluster, established 12 years ago.
Nana Oteng Peasah, chief of Agyapomaa who spoke on behalf of the other communities during a self-reliance celebration. Hailed THP-Ghana and said but for the epicenter clinic, they would be trekking about six kilometres to Asafo, Kyebi or Suhum to access health care.
He said the clinic had saved many lives in the communities especially during emergencies and women with maternal complications as the epicenter clinic offers timely healthcare interventions.
The chief said he was once injured on his cocoa farm and needed emergency medical treatment “I was carried from the farm to this epicenter and within a short time the bleeding had stopped, if I had to be carried to Asafo, I don’t know what would have happened”.
The self-reliance celebration is to mark the handing over to the cluster communities and the district assembly to run the projects which included a clinic, a daycare center, food bank, women’s savings and microfinance projects as a community self-help project to advance the peoples wellbeing.
The epicenter is a methodology for empowering rural communities through the provision of infrastructure such as clinic and other basic needs and the Hunger Project Ghana has about 45 Epicenters in the Central, Volta and the Eastern regions.
Mrs Consolata Dassah, Director of Programmes, THP-Ghana, said in line with their operations after several years the epicenter was handed to the community and the respective assembly to manage it for the benefit of the people.
The epicenters after an average of eight years of operations are handed over or declared self-reliant so that` it can independently operate the programmes for the community’s development.
She urged the chiefs and opinion leaders to come together to support the center to expand its infrastructure, especially to construct two rooms for male and female wards so the old one would be converted to a children’s ward.
Mrs Dassah was hopeful that the communities would work together to execute the sustainability projects as indicated in the road map to the self-reliance status.
Since 1995, The Hunger Project-Ghana has been working in rural communities in Ghana by empowering them through an integrated approach to end their own hunger and poverty anchored on the epicenter strategy.
A tree was later planted on the compound of the epicenter to mark the self-reliance celebration
GNA