The Agotime-Ziope District Assembly has inaugurated facilities aimed at fostering the health and education of the people.
They are a Community Health and Planning Services (CHPS) compound, a classroom block with offices and stores at Akpokope and Agotime-Vedome.
The two-classroom block was jointly built by the community, the district assembly and a non-governmental organisation known as Pencils of Promise (POP), but the CHPS compound was solely put up by the district assembly.
Speaking at separate inaugural ceremonies at Akpokope and Vedome, the Agotime –Ziope District Chief Executive, Mr Michael Kobla Adzaho, said the importance of education as an agent for reducing poverty could not be underestimated because there was a direct link between educational accomplishment and level of well-being.
He, therefore, lauded the efforts of proactive and forward-looking development partners such as the POP, which was collaborating with the district assembly to develop communities by providing them with educational infrastructure. He said similar projects had been completed in four other communities while three were going on.
Mr Adzaho said CHPS compounds were crucial to solving the immediate health needs of the people since community health nurses lived with the people and were easily accessible.
The Country Director of POP, Mr Freeman Gobah, disclosed that under a five-year memoranda of understanding (MOU) with the Ghana Education Service (GES), there were plans to extend the NGO’s operations to all 25 districts in the Volta Region. He said a country office that would serve as headquarters for the NGO was to be opened in Ho from where it would serve the rest of the country.
According to him, the organisation had completed 23 projects in 53 communities across 15 districts and had also put up school buildings and provided them with furniture, electricity, toilet facilities, scholarships and tanks for storing water, all in the Volta Region. In addition, it had also provided opportunities for teachers to undergo further training.
He said the beneficiary schools would soon be provided with water filters to purify their water in order to prevent water-borne diseases.
The Human Resource Manager of the Agotime-Ziope District Education Directorate, Reverend Samuel Sevor, commended the cordial relationship between the district assembly and the NGO and called for a strengthening of the partnership in order that education in the district would improve.
He advised the pupils to take care of the textbooks supplied to them and also asked them to not write on walls of the new school building.
The Chief of Akpokope, Nene Amusu Sagada II, commended the joint action between the district assembly and POP and noted that it was refreshing to observe their concern for development of the communities in the district.
