The wife of the Asantehene Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, Lady Julia Osei Tutu spent her Easter Monday with orphans and children with special needs in some special schools in the Ashanti region.

As part of her itinerary, Lady Julia made donations of food items, provisions and confectionaries to the SOS Village and the Garden City Special Schools in the Asokore Mampong Municipality.

It was both a moment of joy and taking in of pieces of advice when the entourage entered the SOS Village which houses and caters for the holistic wellbeing of a hundred and twenty orphans and extends same support to some 400 children in its family strengthening programs in outreach communities.

She took the opportunity to mingle with the children, interact with them and distribute gifts to each child.

Addressing the children, Lady Julia challenged them to take advantage of the opportunities in the school to become useful adults in the country.

“The environment here is so beautiful and so neat you can see a lot of love has been put into this environment you are in. Make the utmost of it so that you can get the needed education, the love and attention and grow up to become good citizens of our dear nation. I can see a lot of our future doctors, lawyers, teachers, business people and so many of you here,” she advised.

Lady Julia also expressed need for the management of the SOS Village to find alternative means of finding funds in the wake of hard times and dwindling donor support.

She recommended, “We know that times are hard. Funds don’t come in as they should anymore. Things are getting dry. I think all of us have to put our hands together to find more innovative ways of raising money for our charities and orphanages. It’s something I hope I can take up and help support.”

Expressing his gratitude for the donation, the country director of SOS Villages international Alexander Mar Kekula disclosed that his outfit had designed a 2030 vision where no child in the world should live alone without parental care.

He outlined that, “The number of vulnerable children who have lost parental care and are on the verge of losing parental care is increasing by the day. It is as a result of this that SOS children Villages International has adopted the ‘no child should grow alone campaign’ which is defined in our two goal for a 2030 strategy.”

The team also made a whistle stop at the Garden City Special School where Lady Julia is putting up a corn mill for the special school.

Director of the school Dr Roselyn Frimpong Agyapong told Ultimate News’ Ivan Heathcote – Fumador the food items and cash donated to the school will bring them some relief.

“We were told they were coming to inspect the corn mill project. We didn’t even know that food items and other things were coming. We are so grateful because when these things happen, it relieves us the administrators of the burden of the money that we are given to feed the students,”

The entourage included the Chief Executive of the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly Osei Asibe Antwi; the Municipal Chief Executive for Asokore Mampong Alhaji Seidu Alidu, and the chief of Asokore Mampong Boakye Ansah-Debrah.

It was also attended by Market queens and management of the Otumfuo charity fund and the Serwaa Ampem charity fund.