By: Edith Atiaka Eshun
The Member of Parliament for the Tema West Constituency, Carlos Kingsley Ahenkorah, says the construction of a school block for children in the Constituency will go a long way to address the shortfalls in quality education delivery in the area.
He said Santor, a suburb of Tema, has only one government school with the facilities over stretched as pupils sometimes sit along the windows of their classrooms during lessons.
Mr. Ahenkorah made this known when Cargill Ghana commissioned and handed over six schools including that of Santor to the Ministry of Education as part of its sustainability programme.
The schools comprise three Six-unit Primary Classroom blocks, two two-unit kindergarten blocks and a three-unit Junior High School block. Five of the schools, are located in the cocoa growing belts of the Western and Western North Regions while one is located at Adjei Kojo in Tema where the Company operates.
The Company used the opportunity to stress the importance of education and the dangers of child labour in the cocoa sector. It highlighted efforts being made together with relevant stakeholders including CARE International to address the root cause of the problem and tackle the development of school related infrastructure, rehabilitation and child labour sensitization.
The five newly commissioned schools in the cocoa belts of the Western and Western North Regions, are to help use education to support a better start in life for children in these cocoa growing communities as it will serve over one thousand school-going children within the beneficiary areas for generations to come.
The Member of Parliament for Tema West, Carlos Ahenkorah, maintained that the role of the private sector must not be underestimated as it plays a significant role in the growth of society. He commended Cargill Ghana for the timely intervention and stressed the need for partnerships to improve educational infrastructure.
He said currently security personnel will be stationed at the schools premises when teaching and learning tesumes in January 2023. He also suggested the school be named TMWA Model School to make it more appealing to persons who may want to enroll their wards as it motivates the school children.
The Managing Director of Cargill Ghana, Aedo Van Der Weij said Cargill Ghana continues to prioritize education because it is the foundation for which the future will be built; and a base for sustainable economic empowerment, growth and resilience. The school in Adjei Kojo, demonstrates the Company’s desire to tap into the potential of education to build a foundation to transform Tema into a food processing hub in West Africa.
This, the Sustainability Country Lead of Cargill Ghana, Samuel Apana explained that the schools project was borne out of the Company’s desire to provide value for the communities where they operate as real need to target the children on these cocoa growing area.
“Cargill aims to improve the wellbeing of communities and this includes improving infrastructure, and that includes water and schools and other infrastructure that will make the lives of those community members very comfortable for our farmers to work in. What we have in Adjeikojo is one of six schools constructed in cocoa growing areas in Western and Western North. We estimate that over 730 pupils will attend this school and over time the number will multiply in those schools.
We believe that it is very important we keep those children in cocoa growing areas in school, we believe that the future of cocoa industry and the future of Ghana depends on the children so once we give them the best of education, we’re sure the future is guaranteed and the cocoa sector is also guaranteed. Initially the concept of this programme was a rehabilitation of schools but when we went to the cocoa growing and other surrending communities what we noticed was that there was virtually no schools so there was no school to renovate. Cargill the decided that let’s take this upon ourselves as our corporate social responsibility and make sure that we bring this infrastructure to the doors step of our people and make sure that they have the best and a very congenial and environment for then to learn and thrive.
With its Cargill Cocoa Promise programme, Cargill continues to drive progress in the areas of farmer resilience, community well-being, environment and transparency while delivering lasting impact across the value chain. Earlier this year, Cargill constructed and handed over ten mechanized solar water systems to some cocoa growing communities in the Western North Region.
