The Family Strengthening Programme (FSP), a project under SOS Children’s Villages, Ghana, which aims at preventing children from falling out of their family and community care has organised their maiden edition of inter-community games at the Comm-Ce beach at New Ningo.
The event was organised for about 270 children who were from six of the FSP communities at New Ningo. The FSP project communities are Kakasunanka, Gbetsile, Mataheko, Dawhenya, Kpone and New Ningo.
Mr. Anthony Owusu-Gyamfi, the Co-ordinator of the Family Strengthening Programme (FSP) of SOS Ghana called on Ghanaians to be proactive towards the care of Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVCs) in their communities.
He said in addition to the institutionalised care provided by orphanage homes, the communities in order to enhance the image of children they must focus on promoting community care.
Mr. Owusu-Gyamfi therefore appealed to churches, corporate bodies, families and stakeholders to identify such children within their communities and extend love and care to them
Furthermore, he explained that the current trend of donating items to orphanages towards the care of the inmates was not enough because it was impossible for the few orphanages in the country to identify all OVCs.
The FSP under the SOS Ghana had supported strengthened and empowered families and communities to effectively care for over 1,500 children in the Eastern, Western and Greater Accra Regions.
Mr Owusu-Gyamfi said SOS identified children from birth to 18 years through FSP volunteers and opinion leaders in the communities and cater for their education, health and other needs.
He observed that SOS encourages children and their caretakers to reside in their home towns to learn their cultural values and beliefs explaining that most of the children sent to orphanage homes end up not knowing anything about their ethnicity.
Miss Elizabeth Adjei, FSP Project Coordinator said the fun games would be organised quarterly to entertain the children and help unearth their sports talents.
The children participated in Spelling Bee, musical chairs, tug of war, lime and spoon race, filling bottles with water competitions.
Present at the event were officials from Tema Metropolitan Health Directorate who provided first aid and Vitamin 'A' Supplement to the children below five years and distributed 200 mosquito nets to 86 families caring for the children.
