NGO assists orphans and vulnerable with school kits

Feyiase (Ash), Oct 16, GNA - The Ghana AIDS Commission (GAC), in collaboration with the World Health Organisation (WHO), is to train 210 general nurses and midwives in the Ashanti Region by the end of November this year to counsel and to handle voluntary testing in hospitals. Mr Michael Boamey, Regional Co-coordinator of the HIV/AIDS, said already more than half of the target number had been trained under the programme that started in August this year.

Mr Boamey said this at a ceremony organized at Feyiase in the Bosomtwe-Atwima-Kwanwoma District on Friday by the African Hope Foundation of Ghana (AHFOG), a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) to present school kits to orphans and vulnerable children to facilitate their education.

The 40 orphans and vulnerable children, who benefited from the assistance package, were mainly from Feyiase, Kotei, Suame and Nsiana-Antoakrom.

They each received kits valued at 520,000 cedis made up of school uniform, bag, school fees for the academic year as well as monthly allowance for each of them and their guardians. Funding for the procurement of the items and payment of the school fees were sought from the GAC by the NGO. Mr Boamey said aside the counseling and voluntary testing of HIV, the trained nurses and midwives would also be doing jobs that would ensure the prevention of mother to child transmission of HIV. 15 Oct 04