Workshop on poverty alleviation held at Saltpond

Saltpond, May 2, GNA - A four-day Transformational Development Indicators (TDI) training workshop organised by the Mfantseman Area Development Programme (ADP) of the World Vision Ghana has opened at Saltpond.

It is to enable the Non-governmental Organisation (NGO) to evaluate the programme to alleviate poverty and improve the socio-economic well being of families in the coastal communalities of the District and to provide credible information for the promotion of the TDI. Opening the workshop, Mr. Robert Quainoo-Arthur, District Chief Executive (DCE), commended WUG for initiating a number of projects to improve the living conditions of the people.

The DCE identified some of the projects as a primary school block at Ekumfi Asokwa with furniture, a furnished Junior Secondary School (JSS) block at Ekumfi Edumaafa, a nursery at Ekumpoano, a library also at Edumaafa and teachers' quarters at Narkwa and Arkra. He said that the NGO was also promoting distance learning at Edumaafa for the benefit of JSS students under the President's Special Initiative, a KVIP at Ankaful and large poly-tanks for harvesting rain at Asokwa, Edumaafa, Narkwa, Ekumpoano, Arkra and Mbroboto. Other areas WVG was engaged in included a scholarship scheme for needy but brilliant students, training of traditional birth attendants and the training of HIV/AIDS Peer Educators.

Mr. Quainoo-Arthur urged communities benefiting from such projects to use them to transform their living conditions. He pointed out that the TDI findings would serve as an essential document not only for WUG but would also facilitate the socio-economic planning of the District. The DCE stated that the Assembly had acquired a tract of land the ADP to start a Resource Centre.

Mrs. Gifty Appiah, ADP District Manager, said WVG was operating a Family Sponsorship Programme, adding that 1,000 families in 30 communities had registered.

The Manager said the Programme funded by the World Vision in the United States would end in 2015 and stated that the seven sectors under were education, fishing and animal husbandry, water and sanitation, Christian commitment, social capital development, health and nutrition, HIV/AIDS and micro enterprise development.

Officials from the Non-formal Education Division, Social Welfare, Community Development and the staff of the ADP are attending the workshop.

Malaria can be cured without injection - Nurse

Gomoa Dominase (C/R), May 3, GNA - Miss Cecilia Essiljoe, Community Health Nurse in charge of the Gomoa Potsin Clinic, has called on health workers to educate the public to erase the misconception that malaria cannot be cured without injection.

They should also be made to know that it is not the number of assorted drugs that could cure the disease. She made the call at a Malaria Review Meeting organised by Allies in Development Actions (AIDA), a non-governmental organisation (NGO) for health volunteers, chiefs and some Assembly Members at Gomoa Dominase in the Central Region. Global Fund an NGO and the National Malaria Control Programme sponsored the meeting.

The AIDA has trained 22 health volunteers to support the campaign against malaria in the District. Miss Essiljoe stated that some quack doctors were capitalising on the misconception to exploit the people especially in rural areas, which posed a threat to health-care delivery. Mr. Emmanuel Amokwandoh, Executive Director AIDA, said the meeting was to appraise the performance of the organisation in the Malaria Prevention Programmes with particular reference to the level of awareness in the use of insecticide treated nets and compliance with the Intermittent Preventive Treatments (IPT) using Sulphadoxine-Pyrimethamine by pregnant women.

Also reviewed was the acceptance of artesunate and amodiaquine as a frontline drugs for the treatment of malaria under the Anti-Malaria Drug Policy of the Ghana Health Service.

Mr. Amokwandoh appealed to leaders of prayer camps to refer their inmates suspected of having malaria to health facilities. He commended the volunteers for their hard work and dedication and urged them to continue assisting the few health workers in the area to prevent the disease, which is the number one killer in the District.