Regional News of Friday, 20 February 2004

Source: GNA

Do not use twins to solicit arms

Accra, Feb 20, GNA - Mrs Lucy Peprah-Tawiah, President of the Catholic Twins Society (CTS) has urged women, especially twin mothers, to desist from the practice of using their infant twins to beg for alms along the streets.

By so doing, she said, these twin mother beggars, will not only tarnish the good image of twins in society, but will also help the children to cultivate the bad habit of begging, thus making them lazy and unfit for productive work in future.

Mrs. Peprah-Tawiah made the call in Accra when she presented five million cedis cash to five unemployed twin mothers on behalf of the Society, whose cardinal aim is to engage in charitable works, and to support the Catholic Church in its role as a provider of the needy in society.

The cash, the widow's mite of members of the Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church branch of CTS, is to empower the mothers to enter into gainful employment in order to get out of the streets.

She noted that the traditional belief of most people in society is that by giving birth to twins, blessings and riches are bestowed on the parents, since twins have innate fortune.

Mrs Peprah-Tawiah regretted, however, that most twin parents abuse this belief by putting the infants in the scorching sun, while they beg for alms along the streets.

The CTS President reminded twin parents that they have a responsibility to cater for their young ones, and to ensure that they do not become liabilities to society.

She pledged the society's readiness to monitor the activities of twin parents, and to ensure that, "we get them off the streets", adding, "if you go and hide somewhere, we are going to find you out." Present at the ceremony was the Reverend Father Raphael Attah-Donkor, Parish Priest of the Saint Theresa's Catholic Church at Kaneshie, a twin, and Reverend Sister Faustina Ganaa of the Handmaids of the Holy Child Jesus, also a twin.