Nangodi, (UE) May 25, GNA - The Local Civic Coalition (LCC) group in Nangodi in the Upper East Region have expressed concern about the engagement of school children in mining activities in the Talensi Nabdam District. They explained that most of the school children in the communities were abandoning school and going into mining activities. They said apart from mining being one of the worst forms of child labour, it could jeopardize the education of the children if nothing was done now to avert the problem. Members of the LCC expressed the concern at a meeting, organised by GrassRootsAfrica.

The LCC group was formed by the Foundation for Grassroots Initiative in Africa (GrassRootsAfrica), a local NGO working in the areas of poverty reduction, strengthening political, economic and social rights of the poor and the marginalized. The Members of the LCC Group indicated that in 2007, Afrikids Ghana, a Child Right Protection Non-Governmental Organization, collaborated with the Ghana Education Service (GES) and the Department of Social Welfare to withdraw 155 school children from mining activities and reinstated in schools. They were supported from Afrikids Ghana.

The LCC group indicated because the support programme of Afrikids Ghana had ended, majority of these reinstated children were reverting to mining activities.

The members, therefore, stressed the need for the District Assembly, the GES, Department of Social Welfare and other Child Rights Protection Organizations to help fight the situation. The Members also appealed to the Government to help provide water to the Nangodi Community because the people relied only on one borehole. The LCC group complained about accidents on the Nangodi-Bawku Road as vehicles knock down pedestrians very often and urged the Regional Directorate of the Ghana Highways Authority (GHA) to put speed rumps to check speeding vehicles.

The Members of the LCC Group appealed to the Government to assist the group, especially their women, with micro finance to undertake economic activities to enable them to support their families. 2