Compassion International Ghana launches child survival programme

According to the organisation’s 2012 report, a baseline survey was undertaken to assess the needs of women and children, as well as potential pregnant women to collect critical information on key survival indicators for effective planning, management and tracking of progress during the implementation of the CSP intervention.

In addition, the study was to provide an overview of the health situation of children aged  zero to 23 months, as well as their primary caregivers in the six communities.

The organisation’s Programme Communications Manager, Mr Amos Safo, said the programme was designed to help children survive and even thrive in their critical developmental years and also address the livelihood of the mother or primary caregiver.

Working with local church partners, Compassion provides nutrition, medical assistance, parental education, spiritual development opportunities and social support for mothers and caregivers to help the very young and vulnerable children survive the first few years of life.

He said Compassion International Ghana, which commenced operations in Ghana in 2006, engages in holistic child development; providing spiritual, physical, cognitive and socio-emotional training to poor and needy children, besides advocating the rights of all children.

“From 2,000 registered children in 2006, Compassion International Ghana now has registered 39,000 poor and needy children at the Child Development Centres (CDCs) of 145 Implementing Church Partners (ICPs) as at the end of June 2012. Some of our ICPs include the Methodist Church, Presbyterian Church, Pentecost Church, Assemblies of God, ICGC, Baptist Church, Anglican Church, Lutheran Church and Apostolic Church ,” he said.

The organisation, he added, currently operates in the Greater Accra, Central, Volta and Eastern Regions, while plans are underway to enter the Ashanti and Brong Ahafo Regions next year. Management hopes to reach the northern regions in the next three years.

The organisation reported that in its fiscal year ending June 2012, it disbursed a total of GH¢11,042,171 being support from sponsors paid directly to its church partners to take care of the poor and needy children they have registered.

 Besides the support fund, it said sponsors also sent birthday and families gifts to their sponsored children and their caregivers totalling GH¢948,913.

Complementary Intervention grants were also disbursed for the provision of water and sanitation, classrooms, kitchens for child development centres and heart surgeries.

Compassion International Ghana said it provided GH¢1,891,960 towards the provision of these basic needs, up from GH¢1,206,797 in 2011 fiscal year, an increase of 53.45 per cent. The bulk of this funding went into the provision of water and sanitation in the most deprived communities Compassion operated.

Aside this, the organisation funded a lot of health interventions. “HIV and AIDS interventions received GH¢100,000, while a GH¢60,000 grant was spent on a Highly Vulnerable Children (HVC) intervention, which provided  nutritional supplements to children with stunted growth and other critical health needs,” it said.

Further health interventions were screening and treating of new and old cases of TB, heart surgery for children diagnosed with hole-in-heart conditions, as well as malaria treatment which continues to be the leading cause of morbidity among children under the care of Compassion Ghana and its church partners.