By Eunice Hilda Ampomah, GNA
Accra, Jan. 24, GNA – The Teshie Children’s Home is facing financial challenges due to irregular cash donations making the payment of school fees and purchasing of school materials for the children very difficult.
Mr Moses Lamptey, the Acting Administrator of the Home, said for many years the home had been battling with payment of school fees and purchasing of school materials because even though they often received donations, cash donations were minimal.
He said the Home relied on cash donations to cater for the children’s education.
Mr Lamptey, in an interview with the Ghana News Agency, said the Home, which had 25 children, could not admit more because it also had problems with accommodation.
He explained that the procedure for admitting children into the Home was through recommendation and collaboration between the Department of Social Welfare and the Police Service, adding that on the average the Home received three to four children annually.
He appealed to benevolent organisations and individuals to support the Home to complete a dormitory project it had started in order to admit more children who needed support.
Mr Ebenezer Owusu, a 22-year-old Senior High School graduate, and a beneficiary of the Children’s Home, corroborated the financial challenges facing the Home.
« You may not get all your needs provided because you are not the only beneficiary at the Home, there are other children too, therefore we have to manage with the few the facility can offer us, » he said.
Explaining how he ended up at the Home, Mr Owusu said he and his twin brother were taken there by a woman they used to help in trading, who happened to be friends with the owner of the Home, Madam Janet Parker, after their mother abandoned them.
He said they agreed to go to the Home because they were assured of being enrolled in school.
Mr Owusu said: « Other challenges we face here are that you may sometimes feel like doing something on your own but because you are under somebody and some conditions, you cannot do them. »
He said he completed Senior High School this year and was looking forward to furthering his education in Business Management.
Ms Betty Amarh, a 25-year-old Nurse, who was also catered for by the Home, said she was taken there at age six with her two brothers by their grandmother, after they lost their mother and never knew their father.
She said she read Home Economics at the Teshie Secondary School after which she was admitted to the Nursing Training School and completed in 2017.
« I was home until a donor who is a medical doctor took me into her private clinic to work with her, » Ms Amarh said.
GNA
FA/ABD
