UPPER EAST CHILDREN STILL OUT OF SCHOOL ...Despite interventions (PAGE 11)

LIKE all children in the country and across the globe, children in the Upper West Region also deserve the protection, quality health care, the right to quality basic education and above all access to the basic necessities of life.
The picture on the ground with respect to the rights and responsibilities of children, however, is exactly the opposite in the region and in spite of all the efforts being made to get more children into schools to improve their lot, the enormity of the problems confronting children in the region seems to be swallowing them so quickly, which calls for a lot of attention from all interested parties.
Apart from the very high under-five mortality rate, many children in the region are also malnourished and do not go to school. Due to the poor state of the region, many of the children who could not endure the pressure have joined their older relations to travel to the southern part of the country to seek unavailable greener pastures. In recent times, more and more children in the region, particularly females between the ages of 13 and 16, are said to have taken to prostitution, especially in certain areas of the Wa municipality and do undertake their ‘trade’ especially on market days.
Responding to this information, the regional head of the Department of Children of the Ministry of Women and Children’s Affairs, Mrs Annacleta Naab, said her office was liaising with the Domestic Violence and Victims Support Unit (DOVVSU) to investigate and find a solution to the problem.
In an interview with the Daily Graphic, Mrs Naab said even though the department was constrained financially, she was working around the clock to collaborate with some NGOs and other institutions to come out with mechanisms, which would improve the lot of children in the region.
In this regard, her office is to embark on a tour of the various districts, starting from Nadowli, Jirapa and Lawra to know at first hand the state of the children in these districts and to intensify the education and sensitisation to the need for parents to ensure that every child of school age is in school.
Mrs Naab said parents and nursing mothers would also be taken through programmes on how to prepare food for their children to make sure that food given to new born babies was balanced and nutritious.
Investigations by the Daily Graphic revealed that funds to support such programmes were not forthcoming.
Furthermore, the Ministry appears to have drawn an agenda to be carried out in the regions, irrespective of the peculiar nature of problems confronting the regions.
As a step to alleviate the plight of children, Plan Ghana, an international non-governmental organisation (NGO), in collaboration with Midas Education Trust, also an NGO, has taken it upon themselves to institute a project known as the Right of Children (ROC).
The project, which was started in 2003 with six communities in the Sissala area, namely Pulima, Jeffisi, Tumu, Gwollu Fielmua and Zini, has now been extended to cover 58 communities.
According to the Northern Sector Manager of Plan Ghana, Mr William Agyekum Acquah, Plan Ghana’s expectation was that the programme would enhance the abilities and capabilities of children, their families and communities and to make them more active in the development of their respective communities.
Mr Acquah, who was addressing the second graduation of members of the ROC club in Gwollu in the Sissala West District, further explained that the objective of introducing such a programme was to equip at least 70 per cent of families in Plan-assisted communities in the region to be abreast of issues bordering on the rights and responsibilities of children.
“As we speak now, awareness level among Plan-assisted communities, as far as the establishment of ROC clubs are concerned, has risen from the initial two per cent when we started the programme, to 98 per cent”, Mr Acquah indicated and said child participation in a lot of activities in communities, which was relegated to the background, was gradually gaining grounds.
He noted that through the ROC programmes, children, particularly those in Plan Ghana-assisted communities, had been taken through a series of training programmes both at home and abroad. This, he said, had made many of them very assertive, while many were now allowed to participate in decisions which affected them and their communities.
There has also been a tremendous improvement in school enrolment as a result of the intense awareness created, particularly by those on the rights of children to education.
A Member of ROC, Mr Abbass Koriwie, commended Plan Ghana for the initiative, saying, “Now, we know more about personal hygiene and issues on sanitation and even organise clean-up exercises weekly or monthly”. For his part, the District Director of Education, Mr Iddrisu Mahama, appealed to Plan Ghana to extend the ROC clubs to all schools in the district as they had been a very effective tool of empowering school children in the district.
He also advised the children not to disrespect their parents, stressing that “to know your rights means knowing your responsibilities and that must make you a well-behaved child”.U