Graphic, Toyota distribute NHIS cards to street children

GRAPHIC Communications Group Limited (GCGL) and Toyota Ghana Company Limited will today give health insurance cards to street children and other poor groups who were registered by the companies with the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) free of charge last year.
The companies registered a total of 411 street children and other vulnerable persons on October 29, 2011 with the Osu Klottey Mutual Health Insurance Scheme.
Pathfinder’s Outreach Ministry, an NGO offering help to street children, helped to identify beneficiaries for help.
The NGO picked many of the street children from the Tema Station and the Agbogbloshie areas. Other persons also came from Adabraka and its environs to take advantage of the programme to get registered with the scheme.
The Public Affairs Manager of GCGL, Mr Albert Sam, said the beneficiaries would gather at the open space in front of the Maame Dokono Spot at the Kwame Nkrumah Circle, Accra, to receive their insurance cards.
The Scheme Manager of the Osu Klottey Mutual Health Insurance Scheme, Mr N. L. Borketey Bortey, said the programme would begin at 9 am and end at 1 pm.
He, therefore, appealed to all those who were registered to report on time at the venue to collect their NHIS cards.
Mr Bortey commended  Graphic and Toyota for their initiative and urged other corporate bodies, individuals and organisations to emulate their example.
The free health insurance for street children project is part of the social responsibility programmes of Graphic and Toyota, both of which have a keen interest in health.
Graphic runs the Graphic Needy Trust Fund, which helps poor people to pay for medical bills.The company also joins up with partners to run free health care programmes for its communities.
In the case of Toyota Ghana, it has adopted a wing of the Reconstructive and Plastic Surgery Centre of the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital, apart from a donation of a mini bus and cash it made to the teaching hospital last year.

HAS PORN BECOME PART OF GHANAIAN ENETRTAINMENT?

I felt ashamed last Saturday when a TV presenter, Deloris Frimpong Manso alias Delay turned her weekend programme in to a porn show.

The Delay Show which is watched  by many during the weekend serves as a platform for people in and outside the entertainment industry to tell their own story.

Last  weekend’s show was no exception and as I was getting excited to know more about one of my favourite Ghanaian artists, Wanluv Kubolor, something outrageous happened. He was dared by Delay to show his sex organ on the show.

Yes! A  television show presenter, dared him to show his sex organ on the show which was aired at 4.30p.m . The most annoying part of this is that she dared him knowing very well that he would do it.
Hear her, “The last time you came to this show, you said you don’t wear panties. Are you wearing panties now? Can you show me that you are not wearing panties”?

How can a  presenter, knowing very well that children are also part of the audience allow such a thing to happen?

Also, since the interview was a recorded version, why was that part not edited for the sake of  children who would be watching  at that time of the day, 4.30pm? Or has the entertainment industry turned into a porn industry now?

Ghanaians have for some time now been portrayed differently from what our real values and cultures are and this is becoming very disturbing. Almost all our entertainment forts are in one way or the other  exhibiting soft porn through music videos, movies and now television shows.

I might not be too old, but I know from stories being told that it was very difficult in the olden days to even see the thighs of a woman let alone her legs. The moral attitudes were as strict as the Sharia Laws in Nigeria and this gives no woman let alone a man to show his private part.

Infact,  the sex organs were portrayed as the sanctuary of every human being not to be defiled or touched until marriage but the recent changes in technology and the adaptation of Western Culture has swept away these values.

Aside that, did the television station ,TV3,  really allow this to happen on their set or they were all asleep behind the controls when  the forbidden fruit was being displayed on their set as if it was normal ?

TV3 and Delay have suddenly lost their respect through unforgiveable means by allowing such a thing to happen. I want to believe the National Media Commission (NMC) is finding ways and means to put things in order before our future leaders lose their future through programmes such as this.
I
 also think it is  high time the government added entertainment to the tourism industry so that  our artists could be brought to book when it comes to  the way they portray our National Flag to the international world.

After 55 years of  Independence, we also need to question where our culture and values have gone to and attack the factors which have destroyed this rich culture rather than remain silent. We need to act now for our upcoming youth are in trouble!

PROTECT THE VULNERABLE IN SOCIETY

Recently the Daily Graphic, carried a report of a raid at the Autism Awareness and Training Centre at Kokomlemle in Accra by some thieves destroying items worth thousands of Ghana cedis and also getting away with an unspecified amount of money.

The thieves were reported to have struck during the early hours of Sunday morning precisely church hours and managed to destroy the doors of the premises.

The items damaged during this raid were computers, speech therapy equipment and other important learning materials that was important to the everyday lessons of the centre.

The centre is among one of the special schools in the country catering for children with developmental disability which affects their social interaction, communication skills and repetitive restrictive behaviour.
Children and adults with autism are also typically associated with difficulty in verbal and non verbal communication, group activities and even games.

Few days after this raid, there was another report that thieves have stolen 12 out of the 19 cows meant for the Bawjiase Orphanage home in the Central Region.

The stolen cows estimated to cost  about GH¢ 18,000 were a form of a sustainable livelihood to the home for it was from the sale of these cows that funds were generated to take care of the orphans.

The orphanage which is also known as the Countryside Children’s Home has an 80 acre farmland as a self reliance programme to cater for the orphans.

It is also an independent, charitable, on profit organisation dedicated to the positive development and welfare of the under privileged children in society.

You might be wondering where am going with this article but my problem is :what has been the outcome of the investigations on these poor and vulnerable institutions?

Are they given any attention at all by the security agencies in the country? What are our so called Human Right activists doing to support these child institutions, or they are waiting for it to be a nationwide issue where the visually impaired  and those with hearing impairment  also face the same problem.

We must know that these institutions were set up by individuals who thought it wise to accommodate children who are less fortunate and vulnerable in the society. They therefore take no funds from the government but depend on donor agencies, individuals and organisations to support the centres.

The autism centre engage children in vocational education like basketry, beads making, batik tie-die among other trades to equip the children with requisite skills in other to survive in the future.

Where else would they learn this form of education when equipment have been stolen by individuals who have no use for them?

My  plea to the government and the security agencies in the country is to see to the welfare of the children and identify the individuals who for one thing or the other; want to send our dear children back on the streets.

The children have equal rights as any other person in this country, hence they are entitled to the same security and attention. We need to sit up and take issues seriously before the visually impaired and those with hearing difficulties suffer the same fate.

KINGS PUBLICATIONS SUPPORTS FRAFRAHA HOME.

STORY: Zainabu Issah
Kings Publications Limited has donated food items worth GH1,000 cedis to the Christian Faith Foster Home at Frafraha.
The donation came as a result of a  pledge made at the lunch of the book dubbed,” Rejected But Not Forgotten,”  to give back to the orphans in the society. 
The items included bags of rice, water, loaves of bread, packs of biscuits and drinks,
 The Executive Officer of Kings Publications, Rev I K Boateng Antwi said it was important to share love and amongst all wealth with the needy in society.
He said, Orphans when well catered for can also contribute their quota towards the development of the country.
“We are proud to distribute our wealth in any way we can to see to it that the poor and needy in society also have a fair share of what we have, “he explained.
 He however encouraged the children to learn and work hard in their studies in order to become good citizens and impacting their knowledge in society.
 Madam Henrietta Asare Agyeman, who is a mother at the foster home, lauded the effort of Kings Publication for adhering to their promise and called on other organizations to do the same adding that the donation, would go a long way in complimenting what they have and to cater for the children.
She, however, appealed to other organisations to come to their aid.

PROTECT THE VULNERABLE IN SOCIETY

By Zainabu Issah
Recently the Daily Graphic, carried a report of a raid at the Autism Awareness and Training Centre at Kokomlemle in Accra by some thieves destroying items worth thousands of Ghana cedis and also getting away with an unspecified amount of money.
The thieves were reported to have struck during the early hours of Sunday morning precisely church hours and managed to destroy the doors of the premises.
The items damaged during this raid were computers, speech therapy equipment and other important learning materials that was important to the everyday lessons of the centre.
The centre is among one of the special schools in the country catering for children with developmental disability which affects their social interaction, communication skills and repetitive restrictive behaviour.
Children and adults with autism are also typically associated with difficulty in verbal and non verbal communication, group activities and even games.
Few days after this raid, there was another report that thieves have stolen 12 out of the 19 cows meant for the Bawjiase Orphanage home in the Central Region.
The stolen cows estimated to cost  about GH¢ 18,000 were a form of a sustainable livelihood to the home for it was from the sale of these cows that funds were generated to take care of the orphans.
The orphanage which is also known as the Countryside Children’s Home has an 80 acre farmland as a self reliance programme to cater for the orphans.
It is also an independent, charitable, on profit organisation dedicated to the positive development and welfare of the under privileged children in society.
You might be wondering where am going with this article but my problem is :what has been the outcome of the investigations on these poor and vulnerable institutions?
Are they given any attention at all by the security agencies in the country? What are our so called Human Right activists doing to support these child institutions, or they are waiting for it to be a nationwide issue where the visually impaired  and those with hearing impairment  also face the same problem.
We must know that these institutions were set up by individuals who thought it wise to accommodate children who are less fortunate and vulnerable in the society. They therefore take no funds from the government but depend on donor agencies, individuals and organisations to support the centres.
The autism centre engage children in vocational education like basketry, beads making, batik tie-die among other trades to equip the children with requisite skills in other to survive in the future.
Where else would they learn this form of education when equipment have been stolen by individuals who have no use for them?
My  plea to the government and the security agencies in the country is to see to the welfare of the children and identify the individuals who for one thing or the other; want to send our dear children back on the streets.
The children have equal rights as any other person in this country, hence they are entitled to the same security and attention. We need to sit up and take issues seriously before the visually impaired and those with hearing difficulties suffer the same fate.

Email:zainabissah@gmail.com

WHAT IS THE NOISE ABOUT WHITNEY FOR?

By Zainabu Issah
I find it quite amusing the way Ghanaians and the media have received the death of the American musician Whitney Houston.
There is no doubt that her songs have touched the lives of the past and present generations of our beloved country and the world as a whole but this does not mean that we should give her that much attention when there are more pressing matters to be attended to.
Almost all the radio and television stations I tuned in to were so much involved in reading and reciting the biography of this American song bird while a child in the junior high school still can’t tell the history about our beloved Dr Kwame Nkrumah let alone remember the good works he did.
To start with, the music star in question is not a Ghanaian. Her songs were only relaxing tunes to the ear and did not add anything to the development of our dear nation.
In fact, when have we heard them celebrate our own Osibisa or one of African’s finest, Miriam Makeba?
Whitney never visited Ghana or established any centre in this country to support the needy in society let alone sponsor our own music icons who usually look up to these foreign artistes as their mentors.
For God’s sake, we still have the problems of poor sanitation, schools under trees, adequate healthcare and above all corruption to take care of. Why waste our precious time in reading and sensitising the public through our various music channels about the death of this lovely song bird.
Do not think for once that I hate her or I am a racist. No, you are very much mistaken. I am the biggest fan of Whitney Huston and my favourite from her albums is “Judgement Day.” As I said, her music was soothing to the ear but I am also of the view that her lifestyle alone should not have encouraged that much publicity.
This was an artist who was consumed by the use of drugs rather than using her given talent to preach or advise the youth to stay away from drugs. This alone disqualifies her from being a mentor.
It is high time Ghanaians saw the difference between copying blindly and imitating in order to shape our well-being.
Looking at our music industry, some Ghanaian artistes now find it fashionable to be warned about their attitudes on stage. I might not be a good entertainment analyst or critic but I also think that the music industry should put in place dress codes for female artistes who perform on stage.
I make this statement from the recent news bulletin which stated that a female artist performed on stage without panties. Where on earth did she get this idea from if not from these same western culture and way of life? This attitude is no news in the foreign music industry because fashion, performance and exposure are the hall mark of every entertainment artiste.
But its influence has been so great that this same female artiste refused to accept her mistakes in the name of fashion and entertainment. This is how far the lives of Whitney Huston and other American artistes have affected the way and thinking of our artistes.
We should rather be wailing the loss of our culture and heritage, because of foreign influence, rather than reading her biography. We also need to understand the music we enjoy and the icons we want our children to emulate.
 Rest In Peace,  Whitney Houston!

Writers email- zainabissah@gmail.com