General News of Sunday, 15 February 2009

Source: GNA

NGO donates to physically challenged children

Inchaban (W/R), Feb. 15, GNA - New Blue Vision, a non-governmental organization (NGO), on Saturday donated detergents, toys, biscuits and medical equipment worth over 30,000 Ghana Cedis to some institutions in Sekondi and Takoradi in the Western Region. The beneficiaries were the Sekondi School for the Deaf, Twin-City Special School for the Mentally Retarded and the Effia-Nkwanta Regional Hospital.

The donation was made at an event to mark this year's Valentine Day, organized by the NGO for inmates of the School for the Deaf and the Twin-City Special School at Inchaban near Sekondi. Mr. Alfred Biney, Director of the NGO, made the presentation to Mr. Kontoh Osei-Bonsu, Assistant Headmaster of the School for the Deaf, Madam Mary Hayford, Deputy Director of Nursing Services at the Effia-Nkwanta Regional Hospital and Miss Elizabeth Amewowor, Headmistress of Twin-City Special School. In a related development Akroma Plaza and You '84 Supermarket and Hotel, presented 100 bags of rice, 100 cartons of Kallipo fruit drink and 600 cartons of assorted biscuits to the School for the Deaf, Special School and Father's Home Orphange.

Madam Gladys Ansah, Chief Executive Officer of the Akroma Plaza and You '84 Supermarket and Hotel made the presentation. Mr. Biney expressed worry that some parents did not accept their physically challenged children back home after completing the school for the deaf or abandoned them on the street to become beggars. He urged parents to send their physically challenged children to special schools and to contact the NGO through the Department of Social Welfare for school uniforms and shoes if they cannot afford to buy them. Mr. Biney said New Blue Vision was securing land to construct a vocational school to train the physically challenged and neglected children to enable them to earn a decent living. He appealed to government to ensure that all physically challenged persons benefited from the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS). Madam Hayford, advised pregnant women to attend antenatal clinic so that they could have healthy babies and explained that the health of the unborn baby was affected by poor diet, diseases and smoking among others. She advised mothers to ensure that their babies were immunized against childhood diseases such as measles and poliomyelitis.