Plan Ghana, DAF sign MoU for Child Ambassador Project
Plan Ghana and the Diaspora African Forum (DAF) on Friday signed a Memorandum Of Understanding (MOU), for the Child Ambassador Project in Accra.
The Project aims to identify and groom children from deprived rural communities as agents of change within their communities.
Mr Prem Shukla, Plan Ghana Country Director, said the organization had made available $13,500 as seed money for the Project, which kick-starts in January and lasts until December, 2014.
He appealed to corporate Ghana to support this worthy course towards the development of children, once the project is rolled out.
He said in tackling the issue of development, it is important that children do not become passive recipients of developmental efforts.
He said children play very little or no role at all in their own development and the development of their communities, adding that this situation tends to discourage them from actively participating in social development initiatives even when they grow up.
The Country Director observed that this situation is what the Project seeks to address, explaining that the objective of the Project is to empower Ghanaian children to be instrumental in improving their lives and their communities by educating and informing people in the Diaspora about their country, its culture and its humanitarian needs.
Mr Shukla said: “To this end, seven intelligent children would be identified from rural communities through rigorous procedure and groomed to become ambassadors and agents of change in their own communities.
“It may interest you to know that this collaboration between Plan Ghana and DAF as regards the Child Ambassador Project is not new.
“The success of the maiden Child Ambassador Project in 2008, and the impact it had on the child ambassadors and their communities, is what has promoted the re-introduction of this project.”
He observed that in the earlier project, six wonderful children from rural communities in Ghana were sent to the United States for an educative cultural exchange program and made news all over the world, adding that some of them were now pursing their undergraduate studies in Law and Medicine.
He said the MOU was to formalize collaboration between Plan and DAF and to provide both partners with a committed approach to work more closely to achieve the realization of their goals – “enhancement of children participation in development”.
Dr H. E. Erieka Bennet, DAF Founder and Head of Mission, said interaction with Diaspora community in the United States and Latin America by the child ambassadors which is a key component of the project, would offer the children the opportunity to raise awareness about the challenges of children in Ghana, particularly in deprived rural areas and the role they could play in the elimination of child poverty.
Plan Ghana is an international child-centred community development non-governmental organization (NGO), while DAF is an African Union endorsed NGO with its head office in Accra, and seeks to promote the participation of Africans in the Diaspora in the building of Africa.
Mr Kwaku Yeboah of the Diaspora Support Unit of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said, the Project was a laudable and timely initiative, and that government would continue to support such programmes.
Source: GNA