Regional News of Monday, 16 February 2009

Source: GNA

NGO, Akroma Plaza donate to physically challenged schools

Inchaban (W/R), Feb. 16, GNA - New Blue Vision Organisation, a non-governmental organization, on Saturday donated detergents, toys, biscuits and medical equipment worth over 30,000 Ghana cedis to the Sekondi School for the Deaf, the Twin-City Special School for the Mentally Retarded and the Effia-Nkwanta Regional Hospital as part of the celebration of Valentine Day.

Mr. Alfred Biney, Director of New Blue Vision, presented the items 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.

At the same ceremony 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 Sekondi School for the Deaf, Twin-City Special and Father's Home Orphanage.

Mr. Biney expressed concern that some parents refuse to accept their physically challenged children into their families after completing the school for the deaf. He said in other instances, physically challenged children are driven from their homes to become beggars. "This problem should be confronted and the society should take responsibility for the physically challenged."

Mr. Biney said the New Blue Vision Organisation is securing land to build a vocational school to impart skills to the physically challenged and the poor to enable them to earn a decent living. He appealed to the government to ensure that all physically challenged persons benefit from the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS).

Mr. Biney urged parents to send their physically challenged persons to special schools and to contact the New Blue Vision Organisation through the Department of Social Welfare for school uniforms and shoes if they cannot afford to buy them.