By Emmanuel Nyatsikor
Ho, Nov. 24 GNA – Mr. Nyarko Twum-Barima, a Senior Manager of Partnership of Compassion International Ghana (CIGH), has advised Pastors in charge of their various Child and Youth Development Centres to raise their participants to become thriving followers of Jesus Christ.
He noted that this would help them become change agents that would positively influence their families and society.
Mr. Twum-Barima who is also in charge of the Southern Sector of CIGH gave the advice at the closing ceremony of a three-day Southern Territory Pastors Conference of CIGH at the Volta Serene Hotel in Ho.
It was on the theme “twenty years of service in child and youth transformation: sustaining our gains through effective partnership.”
CIGH is a Child Development Non-Governmental Organization that releases children from poverty in Jesus’ name in collaboration with her partner churches in the country.
It was established in the country in 2005 and will celebrate its 20th anniversary next year.
Mr. Twum-Barima urged them to implement programmes that would be targeted to benefit all the participants based on their context adding “your programmes must be context driven.”
“Try as much as possible to avoid the same jacket fitting all programmes and all your programmes should be quality and evidence based,” he stated.
The Senior Manager of Partnership told them that all their interventions should also be data-based on the needs of their participants.
“After identifying the needs of the participants, plan and implement programmes that will help eradicate those needs and also monitor and evaluate the impact of the implementation of these programmes,” he advised.
Mr. Twum-Barima said CIGH multi years priority was to scale up their ministry to achieve their vision outcome with more children quickly between “FY 24 to 28” and reach about 3.3 million children and Youth.
He noted with concern the lack of supervision on the part of some Pastors and told them that the Projects belong to their churches and that CIGH was only there to provide the needed resources and technical support.
He said donors and sponsors needed to see the positive impact their donations were making in the lives of the participants and called on the Pastors to use every pesewa released to their centres to help in releasing the participants from abject poverty.
The Senior Manager of Partnership reminded them that because of the country’s poverty index, CIGH was now moving to the north.
He said for that matter CIGH had graduated 17 Frontline Church Partners in the Accra and Tema Metropolis adding that 13 more which have between a year or two left to attain 20 years were penciled to be graduated.
Mr. Twum-Barima told the Pastors to consider this as they partner with CIGH, saying, “Surely our partnership will one day end.”
He shared some success stories of CIGH’s partnership with the churches with them saying “some of our Participants who would have ended up on the streets are now into various professions.”
Mr. Twum-Barima said “some of our past participants are now pilots, lawyers, doctors, teachers, medical technologists, nurses and ICT specialists.
He urged participants who were still benefiting from the programme to be serious with their studies as CIGH would assist them until they reached 22 years of age.
Mr. Twum-Barima disclosed that CIGH was currently sponsoring over 90,000 children in the country until they reached 22 years of age.
GNA