Church launches 3-year child devt plan

Dashie (NR), Nov. 12, GNA- Mr. Amadu Musah Abudu, East Gonja District Chief Executive, has asked religious bodies particularly those operating in the Northern Region not to only aim at winning souls for their churches, but should also be more concerned about the developmental needs of the people.
"As much as you aim at winning human souls into your churches, you should not also forget to assist liberate the people from their economic and social doldrums, especially in the three northern regions," he said. Mr. Abudu gave the advice at the weekend during the launch of the Northern Presbytery three-year child development plan for the people of Jaton/Dashie in the East Gonja District.
The plan has among other things, promote access to quality pre-school and basic education for about 1,500 sponsored children, Functional Literacy classes for about 1,000 youth as well as non-formal education for parents of sponsored children in 12 communities from the Jaton/Dashie area.
The Christian Children's Fund of Canada (CCFC), a Tamale based NGO is funding the project with about 7 billion cedis for the three-year period, while the church and the East Gonja District Assembly also contributed some funds towards the project.
Mr. Amadu lauded the intervention of the Presbyterian Church for the plan and the assistance of CCFC to help improve education of children and their parents, indicating that the programme fell in line with the Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy II (GPRS II), which aimed at addressing developmental needs of the people. He said the East Gonja District Assembly would always collaborate with development partners in ensuring that the district had its fair share of development.
Mr. Eric Chimsi, Programme Coordinator, said the Northern Ghana Presbytery instituted its development assistance to communities over the past 40 years and that it would continue to offer same assistance to vulnerable groups in society.
He said as part of the programme, the church would work out to improve the health and nutritional levels of about 1,500 children in the sponsored communities and would also facilitate the provision of good drinking water to the communities to curb the guinea worm disease. Mr. Kwabena Tutor, sponsorship officer of CCFC gave the assurance that his outfit would continue to sponsor organisations to take up developmental programmes to better the lives of the people.
The Rev. Esmond Watson Nagba, chairman of the Northern Presbytery who launched the programme, said the church chose the Dashie community for assistance due to the high prevalence of the guinea worm disease and pledged to reduce the pandemic.