By Alexander Nyarko Yeboah
Tuobodum(Bono East), Dec. 25, GNA — A child rights advocate has asked government to make the teaching and learning of child rights an integral part of the school curriculum in Ghana.
The Executive Director of the YAH-Salem Foundation said when children and teachers become aware of child rights, the abuse and exploitation of children could easily be sighted and prevented.
Mrs. Mary Adu Sarfo, who made the call during a child protection sensitisation programme organised by the foundation at Tuobodom in the Techiman North District of Bono East Region, said, “If children know the effects of these abuses on their lives, they would know how to act when ever such issues come up.”
She said that if children did not know what to do in such circumstances, it might derail them, observing that, “If a child follows the friends who skip school a lot, that child might end up becoming a school dropout, and being a school dropout means that your opportunities of getting employment might be lower, and the probability that you will be poor and wallow in poverty now increases.”
“And we know the effects of poverty. If the person is a woman, may result in having to sleep with people to make money, if he is a man, will join gangs to start stealing and engage in other deviant behaviors just to make ends meet,” she asserted.
Mrs. Adu Sarfo, in appreciating efforts of the government in child protection in Ghana, made reference to the passing of the Children’s Act which is supposed to safeguard children and the fact that the Social Welfare and Community Development Departments in the Districts of Ghana are also doing a lot of children protection sensitization in collaboration with UNICEF Ghana.
“But it’s not nationwide, every district is supposed to have this programme running and every child is supposed to have this education and the education is spread to the whole Ghana, it would help because educating some and leaving some is not in the best interest of the child. Whatever we do as a country should be in the best interest of children,” she said.
She said that Konadu Basic/JHS was a deprived school that relied solely on donor contribution. “Children from these schools are coming from surrounding villages; parents are not so vested in the education of these children, sometimes what to even wear to school becomes a problem, the school has to take them from home to school and back home,” she said.
Mrs. Adu Sarfo said the education they were embarking on would not be limited to the children as the foundation would engage the PTA to let the parents and community members know the importance of education.
“The fact that you are poor does not mean you shouldn’t educate your children. If you fail to do that then the cycle of poverty would repeat itself,” she stressed.
Mrs. Adu Sarfo advised parents to listen to their wards without shutting them down when they come to them with complaints, indicating that that would prevent the children from having confidence in them and consulting wrong people in solving their problems.
As part of the programme, the foundation donated 60 sets of school uniforms to a section of the students. These students were identified as very vulnerable and the uniforms were to serve as a motivating factor to enable them come to school.
The Founder of the Konadu Basic/JHS, Mr. Clement Boamah, confirmed that the provision of uniforms was a pressing need of the children.
He therefore thanked the foundation and asked that the sensitisation of the school children should not be a one-off event but should continue to ensure that “children are allowed to be children.”
YAH-Salem Foundation seeks to ensure that children are protected from violence, exploitation, abuse and neglect. The foundation engages children, families, community members and teachers with participatory methods for social mobilization and change for child protection.
The vision of the foundation is to improve the general wellbeing of children across Ghana. The instances of child protection issues such as teenage pregnancy, drug abuse, child labour, sexual exploitation and non-maintenance, etc., are on the rise in rural and urban poor suburbs in Ghana, and YAH-Salem is positioned to work with other NGOs and stakeholders to help curb this canker.
GNA