The First Lady, Mrs. Lordina Mahama has encouraged students to utilize available opportunities whiles in school in order to become responsible citizens in the future because it takes knowledge to live a fulfilled life considering the competition in the world today.

Mrs. Mahama gave the advise when she commissioned a 100 sitting capacity dining hall and a kitchen at the Jakpa RC Primary School in the Chereponi district of the Northern Region.

The facility initiated by the Lordina Foundation and funded by Savannah Diamond Company Limited was to provide a convenient place for the preparation of food, as well as, a place where the school children could comfortably sit to have their meals.

Mrs. Mahama stated that government recognizes the importance of education, and was continuing to expand access, by building new schools and expanding infrastructure in the existing schools across the country, in order to ensure quality education for all citizens in the country.

“Implementation of the progressive free education programme, and the construction of the new community day senior high schools, is opening up greater opportunity for these young children, to climb up the academic ladder, and grow into useful and responsible citizens in the future”, she said.

According to the First lady, all these interventions were aimed at ensuring that education was not only accessible, but that the content was relevant and the quality was good to enable the children to make meaningful contributions to the socio-economic development of the country.

She called on parents, traditional leaders and members of the community to take a keen interest in what goes on in their various schools and make the education of their children the number one priority.

Mrs. Mahama said it was important for parents to encourage the young ones, to take advantage of the many interventions government was currently implementing to improve access and quality of education.

Commissioning the 100 sitting capacity dining hall and the kitchen the First Lady indicated that the construction of this dining hall and kitchen was important because there was the need to continue to create a conducive environment, for the young ones to learn and grow.

She said a major factor in encouraging many parents to send their children to school was the school feeding programme which commenced in 2005 with the intermediate objective, of reducing hunger and malnutrition, increasing school enrolment, retention and attendance and to boost local food production.

“The school-feeding programme, which covered 441,189 children in 2008, today had expanded to cover over 1.7 million children and was supporting many parents, particularly in deprived communities, to provide one meal a day for their wards” She said.

Mrs. Mahama noted that it was important that these meals were served in a safe and hygienic environment and it was for this reason that the Lordina Foundation has taken upon itself, to complement government effort, by facilitating the construction of a dining hall with kitchen attached for the Chereponi School.

She said Chereponi is a very important township especially in respect of their contribution to the country’s agricultural production and added that over the last few years, the Lordina Foundation had been in the Northern Region, to extend support to health facilities in deprived communities and orphanages.

The First Lady expressed her profound gratitude to the management and staff of the Savannah Company limited, for their support, in making the project to become a reality.

For her Part, Mrs Angela Ellen Jonah, Corporate Group Head of Diamond Group of Companies said the project forms part of the corporate social responsibility of the company.

The Paramount Chief of Chereponi, JaminjaMalbaGomna II expressed his appreciation to President Mahama for ensuring that Ghanaians from all walks of life partake in the national cake.

He said several communities in Chereponi had been connected to the national grid and could boast of a portable water supply which was something they never thought could happen within the shortest possible time.

He said CHIPS Compounds have also been constructed at a number of communities to make health care delivery accessible to the people of the area and however appealed to the government for the construction of the main road in the town.