Reverend Father Mathias Mornah, Lecturer at Saint Victor’s Major Seminary, has urged the citizenry to develop a positive attitude to work to help accelerate the country’s development.

Reverend Mornah, who gave the advice, said while it was not out of place to blame the country’s leaders for the woes, a positive attitude to work would help address many of the challenges.

He gave the advice in a sermon at a retreat organised in Tamale by Children Believe, an international non-governmental organisation focusing on the welfare of children, for its staff and partners.

The retreat was for the organisation and its partners to reflect on their work in the past year and to prepare for the new year.

It was also to ensure that staff of both Children Believe and partners were refreshed, reenergized, interact and learn to strengthen team dynamics and bring out the best in their programming.

Besides its core programme plan for the year, Children Believe will be implementing phase three of the Learning through Play plus (LTP +) project in the Upper East Region, key activities under the Centre of Excellence initiative, and expanding the child-friendly accountability mechanism initiative to all programme areas in the Northern, Upper East and Savannah Regions.

Rev Mornah emphasised the need for the citizenry to change their attitude to work, saying “If the citizenry, who work in different sectors, will change our attitude and work every day as if it were the last days of our lives, then our country will develop.”

He spoke about the welfare of children and said “Issues about children are crucial. Children Believe is into an important aspect of our lives. There are a lot of children that are being neglected, in the periphery without any help at all. So, I know that these are children that we are empowering to brighten their lives.”

He, therefore, encouraged Children Believe and its partners that “Even in the midst of COVID-19 with all the dwindling finances, do not count the cost of what you think you will lose but to count the blessings that you bring onto children. Irrespective of the challenges you may encounter as an organisation, never give up. Even if it will demand using your own resources to reach out to unfortunate children, it is a beautiful thing.”

Mrs Esenam Kavi De Souza, Country Manager of Children Believe, encouraged staff to put in their best to continue to work to serve the communities that were entrusted to their care for the betterment and development of children.