All Girls In School

Daniel Osei Bonsu is a 14-year-old boy resident of the Wawase in the Afigya Kwabre district of the Ashanti region in Ghana. Daniel, a junior high school student of the local Roman Catholic School registered with the  Women’s Health to Wealth (WHW) Boys’ Club program in May 2018. The program  trains adolescent boys to attain life skills required for self development and to contribute positively towards the development of  their communities.

About a year ago, Daniel got  so ill hat he sometimes missed a whole term of  school could not participate  in the National Juvenile Football Association of which he was a  member.  After seeking medical help from a local community clinic without any improvement, Daniel’s parents concluded that, the  source of his illness was spiritual and started seeking help from local spiritualists.

Daniel’s absence in school and during club sessions was reported to WHW by the club facilitator. A team from WHW visited Daniel at  home after he two weeks of absence from club sessions in June 2018 and found him  in a critically ill and helpless situation. Despite the fact that his  mother was convinced it was a spiritual issue, she was encouraged to send Daniel to the WHW hospital in Kumasi.  Daniel was found to be severely anaemic and required  urgent blood transfusion. He was referred to and admitted at the emergency unit the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH) where he was transfused with three pints of blood and later  hooked onto a ventilator. Sadly, Daniel was unable to make it and passed on seventeen days after  intensive  care at  KATH.

Daniel was diagnosed as having a congenital malignant blood disease that usually affect other siblings. This disorder occurs in people with a compromised immune system and in persons that have a family history of having this malignant disease. It was evident Daniel received late treatment for this disease because parents and his community attributed his sickness to work of demons in the spirit world.

With this knowledge of the cause of Daniel’s ailment and the fact that this disease is genetically transferrable, his parents were urged after being educated on the nature of the illness to send his four other siblings for testing.    As the saying goes, “A stitch in time saves nine”– even though we lost Daniel, we have had the opportunity to save his four other siblings through early detection and appropriate treatment for two others  who also have the same problem.

Fig. 1. Group discussion among boys during a Boys’ Club session.

Report by:

Deborah Mensah Duah.

Between December 2015 and May 2016, WHW Girls Clubs members were given fruit trees to nurture as a way of learning how to be responsible and responsive to issues that affect their lives. Girls Club members were taught to consider and represent the fruit trees as their dreams and therefore were tasked to always reflect and adhere to principles of plant growth as fundamental precepts for realizing their dreams. Moreover, Girls Club members were given these fruit trees to grow as supplements for food and vitamin minerals.

Girls Club members in Aduamoa D/A JHS received eight fruit trees made up of four seedlings   each mango and orange that were successfully planted in May 2017. The members were alarmed when five of the eight trees were vandalized by unknown assailants in July 2017 and therefore provided special fencing to guard the remaining three plants.

In April 2018, when Girls Club members (2018 Graduands) realized that the Ministry of Road and Urban Development (Ghana) was going to construct a road from Aduamoa to Aduman that would affect the parcel of land housing the fruit trees, they quickly sought assistance from the school authorities to transplant the fruit trees which had grown and firmly rooted in the soil

The students provided animal manure and building blocks as fence for transplanting. In May 2018, the students with their teacher-facilitator successfully transplanted the remaining three fruit trees which are about 25 months old. Unfortunately one fruit tree died as a result with the remaining two alive and growing steadily.

Girls Club members have learned from this experience that they need to be current, observant, proactive and cooperative in life especially on their education and health. They have also gained the experience of going extra mile to do the impossible by changing their environment and also by turning threats to opportunities in order to achieve their dreams. With the teacher-facilitators coordinating this activity, exited Girls Club members have left legacy of Girls Club members protecting one another from harm.  

Written by Abraham Kwasi Nkrumah (Program Officer, WHW)

The Quiz

Arts & Crafts Session

Presentation of Awards

Effective Communication

Speaker: Rev V. Acquaah