By Samuel Akumatey
Ho, Oct. 30 GNA – Churchill Oforikumah, Assembly Member for the Peki Dzogbati in the South Dayi District of the Volta Region has supported more than 50 school children with uniforms and learning materials.
The Assembly Member told the Ghana News Agency the annual donation was in its tenth year, and was inspired by the continuous absence from class, one of his brightest kids when he began teaching in the community. The initiative targets brilliant but needy school children.
He said a follow-up on the little girl revealed how the inability to afford learning materials and school uniforms kept the brilliant girl at home, and there he took on a philanthropic journey of his own.
“I realised the brightest of my pupils was always missing school, and when I did the follow-up, I found out she lacked learning materials and also her school uniform was badly torn. So, I began with her and a few others in my class.”
Mr Oforikumah said the initiative was extended to cover more brilliant children needing help, and that over the course of a decade, hundreds have been kept in school and progressed along the academic journeys.
He revealed how he singlehandedly funded the initiative for years until some friends of benevolence stepped in to help.
Mr Oforikumah would go on to become the Assembly Member for the area and expanded the support to include textbooks and educational materials for schools and teachers.
He also extended the program to cover schools in Hohoe, where he originated.
This year’s program benefitted two communities in Peki, and teachers there helped identify children that fit the category.
Parents and guardians thronged the Church to watch their children receive the packages, and they expressed profound appreciation.
“This is one of the social interventions I am doing. I allocate part of my salary every month to this work,” Mr Oforikumah said.
The Assembly Member chairs the Social Services Committee of the District Assembly, and says he supports a handful of students at the tertiary level too, and that he expected the beneficiaries to take up the spirit of social responsibility.
Mr Oforikumah also organises health screening exercises for girls, the disabled, and the less privileged, and hopes to formally establish the initiative as an organised entity and expand it across the District and the Region as a whole.
“Helping humanity is what I do, and I wish to register the organisation as an NGO for bigger organisations to come onboard and extend my arm,” he said.
The Assembly Member would however lament the lack of support from the Local Assembly and the Office of the Member of Parliament for the program.
Reverend B.K Danku, the District Pastor of the EP Church commended the spirt of giving, and said well-meaning members of society should find the urge to support the Assembly Member.
GNA