Samira Bawumia, Wife of the Vice President, has appealed to the public to support the humanitarian activities by the Samira Empowerment and Humanitarian Project (SEHP) to respond to the needs of vulnerable people.

Supporting the SEHP, she said, would help to meet the maternal health, educational, and livelihood needs of many vulnerable individuals, families and communities.

Mrs Mawumia made the appeal in Accra at a Fund Raising Choral Concert, organised on Saturday by the Project, in collaboration with the Royal Philharmonic Choir, Ghana. The SEHP is a not-for-profit organisation to empower the underprivileged in society through diverse social interventions to improve their living standards.

It focuses on Health, Education and Economic Empowerment.

Under its health projects, the “Safe Delivery Initiative” was developed to reduce the rates of neonatal and maternal mortality across the country by providing birth kits to expectant mothers in their third trimester and in deprived communities.

The kits contain essential supplies such as cord clamps and sheets, medicated soap, sterile blade, gloves and delivery cloth, gauze swabs, haematinic capsules, chlorhexidine gel, and anti-haemorrhaging. These are to ensure the safe delivery of babies and their proper care. For Education, the “Library In-A-Box” project was instituted to distribute books essential to improving learning outcomes in schools.

A “Shea Empowerment Initiative” has also been developed with support from the Exim Bank to train women within the shea-butter industry to pick and process shea nuts into fine and quality butter for marketing.

Mrs Bawumia said per data collected, neonatal and maternal mortality were mostly caused by postpartum haemorrhage, hypertensive disorders and sepsis.

However, there had not been any record of maternal and neonatal death caused by the aforementioned disorders since the introduction of the Safe Delivery Initiative, she said. Nation building through such developmental projects, she said, was not the sole responsibility of government, but required a collective effort and dedication of the entire citizenry to achieve.

She, therefore, called on all benevolent individuals and corporate institutions to support the life-changing initiative and commended all those who supported in diverse ways to make the concert an success.

Quoting the words of John Bunyan, a Poet, she said: “You have not lived today until you have done something for someone who can never repay you.”

She said donations in aid of the SEHP could be done through the Zenith Bank Account numbers 006010618630 or 0004050606135.

Mr Richard Sam-Asante, the Executive Director of the Royal Philharmonic Choir, told the Ghana News Agency that the Choir partnered Mrs Bawumia because her project was in line with their mission of helping the needy.

He said it was pathetic for expectant mothers to die through child birth due to lack of access to basic tool kits, hence the partnership to eradicate the canker.

The Group anticipates to raise about GH¢200,000 to purchase 1000 birth kits and photoscopic machines for health facilities in deprived communities.

Dignitaries at the Concert included Professor S.K.B Asante, Chief Executive Officer of Ghana Arbitration Centre, Mrs Catherine Abelema Afeku, Minister of State at the Office of the President, Mrs Ursula Owusu Ekuful, Minister of Communication, and Ms Stephanie Sullivan, the US Ambassador.