Regional News of Wednesday, 22 November 2006

Source: GNA

Development chief undertakes development projects at Kwahu Tafo

Kwahu-Tafo (E/R), Nov. 22, GNA - A British philanthropist, who was crowned development chief of Kwahu Tafo under the stool name, Nana Kwadwo Ameyaw Gyeabour-Yiadom I, has invested two billion cedis in development assistance, including 500 computers, for the community since his installation five years ago.

The British, known in private life as Humphrey Backlay, was adopted into the Asona Royal Family of Kwahu Tafo and enstooled in September 2001 as the Development Chief of Kwahu Tafo.

The Chief of Kwahu Tafo, Nana Ameyaw Gyensiama III, who announced this at the fifth anniversary celebration of Nana Gyeabour-Yiadom, at Kwahu Tafo said he became associated with him during the funeral celebration of the late Christopher Asante Gyeabour, a citizen of Kwahu Tafo and an actor, in the year 2000.

He said after his enstoolment, Nana Gyeabour-Yiadom went back to the UK to form a Non Governmental Organization (NGO) called 91Friends of Tafo' (FOT) with friends and relatives to solicit funds to finance the development projects.

Nana Gyensiama said the FOT funded the construction of a library for the town, built a block of four classrooms for the Kwahu Tafo Senior Secondary School equipped with 40 computers.

FOT has also provided all basic school children in the community with free exercise books and also supplied reading and sight glasses to the people in the town, among others.

He commended the FOT and Nana Gyeabour-Yiadom for organizing training in beads making, bee keeping, tie and dye, soap making and basketry which have offered employment to the youth in the area. Other projects undertaken by the FOT, according to the Tafohene, were the rehabilitation of toilets and the drainage system in the town to help improve environmental sanitation.

He said he would ensure the construction of an Information, Communication and Technology centre in the town, as well as an assembly hall for the Senior Secondary School and a tertiary institution in the community in the next ten years and appealed to the Kwahu South District Assembly for assistance.

The District Director of Education, Nii Okaija Dinsey, advised parents to support Nana Gyeabour-Yiadom's efforts and send their children to school.