Second edition of ‘Child Ambassador’ launched
Six brilliant needy students from some rural areas in Ghana have been selected to participate in the second edition of the Child Ambassador Project to be held in Colombia this year.
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The six, made up of three males and three females, were drawn from the Volta, Central, Eastern and the Upper West regions of the country.
Upon their return, each of the participants would be expected to embark on a development project in their respective communities.
The Project
The project, established in 2008, seeks to empower children to be instrumental in informing and educating people in the Diaspora about Ghana, its cultures and humanitarian needs.
It also aims to give voice to children through the media and to equip them with intellectual ability to clearly come up with child-led initiatives which will benefit their communities.
The project, organised by the African Union Diaspora African Forum in partnership with Plan Ghana will provide the six the platform to communicate their concerns, increase awareness of poverty and challenges in Ghana, especially in the rural areas.
Under the project, seven children were to be identified from rural communities and groomed to become ambassadors of change in their communities. However, the second edition identified six to ensure equal opportunities for both male and female.
Participants will undertake a cross-cultural exchange programme geared to give them the needed exposure to interact with students from other countries.
Second edition launch
At the launch of the second edition in Accra, the Country Director of Plan Ghana, Mr Prem Shukla, said the project sought to empower Ghanaian children to be instrumental in improving their lives and communities.
“Indeed, this educational tour to the diaspora by our child ambassadors is a sure way of broadening their horizon and encouraging them to aspire to greater heights in society.
“The children will undergo a 10-day thorough training to equip them with various skills to be able to articulate issues affecting children in their communities, district, regions and nation as a whole,” he said.
Mr Shukla expressed his profound gratitude to the Colombian Embassy for coming on board to empower marginalised children from rural Ghana, and called on other corporate institutions in the country to support the initiative.
Exposure for children
“The children we sent to US in the first edition, one of them is in the medical school, one is a teacher now and the others have full presidential scholarship to study. Ghana has some of the brightest children in the world, all they need is exposure”, the Head of Mission of Diaspora African Forum, Ambassador Dr Erieka Bennett said.
According to her, children in the country had the potential to aspire for a better height in the society, hence the initiative to offer them the platform to develop their potentials.
For her part, the Colombian Ambassador to Ghana, Claudia Turbay Quintero, said necessary arrangements had been put in place to make the stay of the children in Colombia a successful one.
