Accra, May 30, GNA- Boy-Child Initiative Ghana (BCIG), an NGO, on Saturday donated assorted items to over 100 street boys who sleep at a slum near Opeibea House, off the Airport Highway in Accra.
The items included toothpaste, toothbrushes, slippers, nose masks, and drinks.
The NGO also donated food items to Mr Mohammed Afisu, a street boy who was knocked down by a car when he was cleaning the windscreen of vehicles at the Opeibea traffic light.
Ms Akosua Offeibea Boakye, the Director of BCIG, said the donation was to show love and offer hope to the street boys in the area.
Ms Boakye said the Organisation realised that social interventions were mostly targeted to girls, neglecting the boys, hence the need to advocate for boys in vulnerable communities by empowering them to be responsible citizens in the future.
This, she explained, was necessary because the men were regarded as heads of families and as such needed to empower to take up the leadership responsibility.
The organization, according to her offered educational and scholarship supports to brilliant but needy, especially the boy-child in deprived communities.
Ms Boakye said the Organisation since its inception in 2014 had donated to a village in Suhum, Children’s home, Nsawam prison, and supported the education of two boys in the Senior High Schools.
Ms Boakye said the establishment of BCIG was to bridge the gap between the attention accorded to the girl-child to that of the boy-child.
Mr Sulemana Yayah on behalf of the street boys thanked the Organisation for the kind gesture, adding that the items would bring relief to the beneficiaries.
He said he started living on the streets since 1992 and indulged in criminal activities and later arrested and imprisoned for nine years for robbery
« I have learned lessons in prison and I am a changed person now. I no more engage in criminal activities », he said.
He appealed to the Organisation to provide them with mosquito nets because they were mostly fell sick malaria.
Mr Afisu commended the organisation for the love and care showed him and appealed for help to be enrolled as an auto mechanic apprentice.
GNA
CA/AD
May 30, 2020
