Cape Coast, Oct.8, GNA - Ustaz Abdul Jaleel Abdul Ganiy, head of an international Islamic charity organization, has donated food items worth GH= ¢ 2000 to the Cape Coast School for the Deaf. The items include six bags of rice, four gallons of vegetable oil, fou= r cartons of key soap, four of cartons milk, toilet rolls, bags of sugar, biscuits and soft drinks. He said the donation was part of their social responsibility towards the needy in society and gave the assurance that the organization would mak= e an annual donation to the school. The Housemaster of the school, Mr Bernard Koranteng Gyapong, thanked the donors for the gesture and appealed to other organization to emulate th= e example. He said the school which is now 40 years old has a pupil population of 397, made of 222 boys and 175 girls and that the school scored 91 per cent in this year's BECE. He said the school's major problem was the inability of most parents= to communicate with their wards using the sign language, adding that in some cases when the pupils were on holidays their parents had to bring them to the school for signs to be interpreted for them. He said to address the situation, the school has decided to organize weekly sign language training for the general public and urged parents to take advantage of the program.

In a related development participants attending this year's Ahlussau= nna Wal-Jama'a Da'awa (Convention) being held in Cape Coast have donated bl= ood to the Central Regional Hospital blood bank. The three day national convention being attended by more than 5000 delegates from all the 10 regions in the country is under the theme "Homosexuality a danger to society". Mr Martin Ampofo, Senior Blood Programme Coordinator, thanked the participants for the blood donated, stressing that the donation was timely since the blood banks were low. He said the bank receives the bulk of its blood supply from second cycle schools in the region adding that when the students are on holidays i= t becomes difficult to get people to donate. He appealed to other organizations to emulate the members of the Ahlussaunn= a Wal-Jama'a group and donate regularly to the blood bank to help save live= s.