By Dennis Peprah
Fiapre, (Bono), Jan 27, GNA – Dr Gabriel Gbiel Benarkuu, the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of MIHOSO International Foundation, a Civil Society Organisation (CSO), has urged CSOs and Non-governmental Organisations to find alternatives ways of raising funds for community intervention programmes.
Instead of over-relying on donor funding and grants, he advised the CSOs and NGOs to create social entrepreneurship, networks, and strengthen partnerships.
Dr Benarkuu, also the President of the College for Community and Organisational Development (CCOD), a private technical university, expressed unhappiness about the decline of donor support and funding for CSOs and NGOs.
Basically, he said that was because of the nation’s status of being a middle-income country, saying that had changed the funding raising field, having a huge toll on the activities of the NGOs and CSOs.
In an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA) on the side-lines of a staff retreat of the Foundation held at Fiapre, near Sunyani, Dr Benarkuu noted that many NGOs and CSOs in the country were on the verge of collapse due lack of funding.
It offered an opportunity for the Foundation to assess its strengths and weaknesses, achievements for 2024 and the prospects in 2025 and develop strategic and action plans for the year.
Besides community intervention programmes, Dr Benarkuu said NGOs and CSOs could focus on infrastructure development, commercial farming, and other viable economic activities to sustain their activities too.
Touching on youth unemployment in the country now, he expressed concern about the dwindled spirit of voluntarism and communal labour in society today and urged the contemporary youth to develop a good mind-set and do voluntary services too.
“The youth nowadays must change their mentality of self-satisfaction, remain patients, build networks and guide mentors, both physical and spiritual,” he advised, saying “the moment you want to be comfortable in what you are doing now, you are not going to make better progress”.
Established in 2003, Mr Thomas Benarkuu, the Deputy Chief Executive Officer in-charge of Operations, explained the foundation among other objectives worked to improve the conditions of vulnerable people with emphasis on women, children, and girls.
He commended the staff of the foundation for their hard work in 2024 and urged them to continue with that for the foundation to achieve its action plan of helping to build a better society for the vulnerable.
GNA