Vambara (U/E), Oct. 19, GNA – The Haven of Love Children’s Foundation, a Non-Governmental Christian Organisation, has presented 240 school uniforms to pupils in public basic schools in two Districts of the Upper East Region.
The beneficiary District schools included the Belempiisi Primary School under Binduri and the Vambara D/A Primary and the Bugwia Basic Schools, both in Garu.
In the various schools, officials of the Foundation personally dressed the pupils who were previously in mufti, with the new school uniforms, which were totally estimated to cost GH¢14,000.00.
Mr Samuel Nana Bekai Djirackor, the Founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Foundation, in an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA), said the Foundation had over the years operated in rural communities in the Bawku West District.
He said leadership and management of the Foundation treasured children and therefore, decided to extend its activities to rural communities in the Binduri and Garu Districts.
“We realised that a lot of children are from poor homes and by extension, they do not have school uniforms to go to school,” adding that children who attended school in mufti, were often affected psychologically in the midst their colleagues wearing uniforms.
“Most of the children in these communities do not want to go to school because of that. They feel that the school is not as important as being at home, and we realised that the future leaders of Ghana may be from these rural communities,” Mr Djirackor said.
He said the initiative also afforded the Foundation the opportunity to encourage the pupils to go to school and open their minds to the fact that education was the gateway to growth, prosperity and enlightenment.
The CEO expressed gratitude to Ebony Events in Accra, the Elect Enterprise in Nigeria and other donor partners across the globe, who contributed to support, and called for more partnership from organisations and individuals, to help scale up the initiative to benefit other rural communities.
Pupils across the three beneficiary schools expressed gratitude to the Foundation and appealed for other support like footwear as some of them trekked barefooted to seek for education.
A guardian to one of the pupils at the Vambara D/A Primary School, Ms Salome Atibilla, on behalf of parents thanked the Foundation and prayed for God’s blessings for them to continue to support their children.
Mr Moses Seidu Kuni, the Head teacher of the Vambara D/A Primary School also thanked the Foundation for the gesture and appealed to the government and other NGOs to support the school with furniture and stationery.
He said although the Garu District Assembly had supplied them with some pieces of furniture, they were not enough and friendly to the Kindergarten section where pupils laid on the bare floor to learn.
His colleague at the Bugwia Basic School, Mr Inusah Madi Tobur, also appealed for water for the school, before the only borehole for the school constructed several years ago, broke down and appeals to have it repaired had yielded no results.
He said the repair work was capital intensive, and though the School Management Committee had contributed some funds towards it, it was insufficient.
GNA