Worrying information available to the Daily Guide newspaper shows that some pupils in communities in the Sunyani West District of the Brong Ahafo region go to school with bottled ‘pitoo’, a local wine, as their breakfast.

Such children can be found in communities such as Aprakukrom, Abronye, Bofourkrom and Fawotrikosie.

According to a drive who plies the road, I was common to see school children carrying bottles of pito to school every day. Stephen Oduro Yeboah, affectionately called ‘Agyaadwo’, who gives the children rides to school, disclosed that he phenomenon was not a new thing in the area.

Some parents who spoke to the media that visited the area in connection with the commemoration of this year’s International Human Rights Day at Aprakukrom, also confirmed the story and said that it was the only option they had for their children as breakfast. The trip to Aprakukrom was organized by a Sunyani based NGO, Global Media Foundation (GLOMEF), to report abuses of their rights. According to one parent, she did not see anything wrong with the children drinking pitoo as breakfast since that was what they could afford.

This reporter can also confirm that even though the area is deprived, the few schools there do not benefit from the School Feeding Programme.

Meanwhile, at the forum, things turned dramatic after the participants were taken through the aspects of human rights. A middle-aged woman emphasized that most of the men in the villages were a disgrace to manhood.

She alleged that the men, citing her husband as an example, had been doing very little to support the up-keep of their children as they only invested their income in alcoholic drinks and concubines at the expense of the children’s future. The woman defied pleas to be cautious from other women present, who were of the view that she was going out of bounds by disgracing her husband in public.

The woman, fuming in frustration, called on authorities to check men of such disgraceful character.

Her behavior got the few men who were there angry. The men accused the organizers of embarrassing them in front of their wives and left the forum unceremoniously.

Some of the participants also revealed that they did not see the essence in investing in their children’s’ education.

They alleged that teachers in the communities had been exploiting the children on their private farms, saying, “Why should we buy uniforms and shoes of the children only to be used as working gear on their teachers’ farms”?