‘Create safe environment for children’
The Kadjebi District Chief Executive (DCE), Mr Maxwell Kofi Asiedu, has called on Ghanaians to help create a safe and conducive environment for the proper growth of children.
Advertisement
He said there was always the need to protect them from neglect, violence, abuse and discrimination on the grounds of age, religion, disability, health status, custom, ethnic origin, rural or urban background and socio-economic status.
Mr Asiedu also appealed to parents to show interest in the education of their children because their future depended on the kind of education offered them.
He said education was a right and not a privilege and thus, called on parents to send their children to school with the advice that the rural folk had the same God-given talents as those in the cities.
Workshop on child protection
Mr Asiedu was addressing a two-day orientation workshop organised by the Nkwanta Cluster Office of World Vision Ghana for 119 Community Child Protection Committee (CCPC) members drawn from its 17 operational areas in the Kadjebi District.
Topics treated included the definition and concept of social protection, national policy on child protection, community child protection committees - objectives, structure, composition and functions, rights of the child and parental duty, care and protection, penalty for contravention, among others.
In her address, the Nkwanta Cluster Manager of World Vision Ghana, Mrs Salomey Yeboah, said the CCPC had the aim of ensuring that all aspects of child protection were done so that children and the youth were kept safe from harm, abuse and neglect.
She, therefore, advised CCPC members to be diligent enough to help create conducive environments for the growth and development of children.
She said there was the need for everybody to get on board to help ensure the proper maintenance and development of children in the Kadjebi District.
Appeal against child abuse
An Assistant Social Officer of the Department of Social Welfare and Community Development, Mr Albert Henyo, appealed to CCPC members to help in addressing abuse cases perpetrated against children.
Mr Henyo, who spoke on the topic “Community Child Protection Committees -Objectives, Structure, Composition and Functions”, called on CCPC members to also assist in monitoring households.
Index for development
He said social protection was now recognised as an important ingredient for poverty reduction in developing and under developed countries.
Madam Lydia Rose Adatsi, a retired nurse and member of Dodi-Mempeasem CCPC, on behalf of the beneficiaries, thanked the benefactors for the programme and promised to apply the skills and knowledge acquired meticulously since child protection issues were human rights matters.
