World Vision Ghana donate sports kits to Mfantseman schools

Saltpond (C/R), Oct. 16, GNA - The Local Area Development Programme (ADP), of the World Vision Ghana (WVG), an international non-governmental organisation (NGO), has donated sports kits worth GH¢33,000 to educational institutions in the Mfantseman Municipality, as its contribution to HIV/AIDS campaign.

The items that included 204 footballs, 10 metal goal posts and nets, 34 volley balls, 17 volley ball posts, 10 table tennis sets, six hand ball posts and nets, would be distributed to 60 basic and second cycle schools in the area.

Twenty four footballs and a basketball court built by the NGO were given to the Municipal Directorate of Ghana Education Service (GES), for the development of sports in the area. Making the presentation at Saltpond on Tuesday, Mrs. Gifty Otu Appiah, ADP Manager, said the NGO being a child-centred development organization, was committed to educating the youth on HIV/AIDS through the promotion of sports.

She said "We want to partner the GES to occupy children with sporting activities during their leisure time since the devil finds job for the idle hands."

Mrs. Appiah said the WVG was convinced that when children were engaged in sporting activities their attention would be detracted from sex.

She cautioned Ghanaians against becoming complacent in the fight against HIV/AIDS because of the low rate of infection recorded recently in the country adding that "We should all be ambassadors in the campaign against the disease". Mr. Hakeem Hayford, the Municipal GES Sports Organizer, said that the Directorate had trained all teachers in basic schools in the area in HIV/AIDS prevention and care and support for People Living with the Disease.

He appealed to circuit officers of education in the Municipality to ensure that teachers educated school children on HIV/AIDS. Mr. Anthony Baison, a Municipal Assistant Director of Education in charge of Supervision, who received the items on behalf of the Directorate, said the promotion of sports could an effective tool for the prevention of HIV/AIDS among the youth. He said courses in HIV/AIDS had now become part of the curriculum of the Teacher Training Colleges in the country. Mr Baison commended the NGO for the gesture and said that the items would be put to goods use to achieve the purposes for which they were donated.