A couple of months ago, I came here to ask for your assistance in implementing a REACH Ghana project in Glefe, Ghana. Through the help of many of you, readers, friends, family and other REACH Ghana associates, we raised close to $4,000. The official tallies are yet to be made but I am here to give you thanks for your support and to give you an unofficial account of the difference your money made.
We arrived that morning to Glefe to a water body, whose banks were filled with filth, puddles with stagnant water and trash. It was readily apparent the community needed some sort of intervention and, at the Ghana Health outpost, people were trickling in for it.
Through the course of the day, we screened approximately 200-300 children, women (including nursing and pregnant mothers), and men for malnutrition, diabetes, high blood pressure and breast cancer. Once attendees passed through the screening process, they were transferred to a final station where they were counseled on healthy eating and lifestyles and where needed, given medication supplied by Cocoa Clinic for malaria.
At this station, one hundred insecticide-treated mosquito nets were distributed to nursing mothers and pregnant women in the hopes of decreasing the incidence of childhood malaria in those homes. Parallel to this, one hundred and seventy one children and elderly people were registered for the National Health Insurance Scheme allowing them access to free healthcare and some medications for a year. REACH capped off the day by donating weighing scales, an electronic sphygmomanometer and the canopy tent under which we held activities to the health outpost.
Moving forward, REACH has initiated work with the Member of Parliament for the area, and Zoomlion, a waste management company towards establishing a waste disposal system in the community. We will be commissioning studies of the project’s effectiveness in the coming months.
As the organization looks forward to another year full of ambitious projects like the HIV/AIDS Intervention and Clean Water for Life initiatives, I would like to thank all our sponsors and ask for your continued support in making a better Ghana a reality.
For pictures of the event and other REACH news, go here and here and become a fan on facebook.
Special thanks to Maame Sampah, REACH Ghana Executive Secretary, Marie-Stella Essilfie and William Okyere Frempong, Local Operations Directors of REACH Ghana, students of the University of Ghana Medical School, volunteering members of REACH Ghana, REACH Ghana Executive and Advisory Boards, Cocoa Clinic, Citi FM and the New Ghanaian Newspaper.
Prime
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This is the way I choose, the destiny I pursue
To help the unfit and the fit
To treat each according to his need
*************************************************
Saturday, February 19, 2011
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Imagine That
In this admittedly old news, Slate explores the recent occurrences of law students suing schools or citing them in bankruptcy lawsuits. The students argue that these schools knew there were few to no jobs available for students post graduation yet continued to encourage prospective students to apply. The schools then loaned such students large sums of money. The argument, then, is if schools advanced these loans knowing full well students would default on them, then they acted in bad faith and students should not have to repay loans.
If that sounds like the subprime mortgage crisis that plunged the US into a recession, it’s because it is pretty much like it. It also sounds like the SSNIT (Social Security and National Insurance Trust) loan scheme in Ghana. After all, the government does know the job market is bad, to put it mildly. The universities are fully aware they offer a lot of theoretical discipline and very little employable skill. Yet, they continue to exist.
And each year, thousands of graduates default on SSNIT loans that saw them through college leaving their guarantors, ordinary Ghanaians roped into the scheme, bearing the loss of retirement income among other things. And it’s easy for SSNIT to do this because the government of Ghana is the main employer and can deduct income from the cheques of guarantors.
Should the SSNIT loan scheme be shelved, university admission rates decreased and the building of new universities stopped then? I think not. Universities are in the education business. They offer an asset from which a consumer can generate income over a period of time. They, however, do not guarantee such a stream of income. They cannot, for instance, commit crimes to generate caseloads for more lawyers. I’m being facetious but the point is the onus is on the consumer to understand what such an education is worth to him and what he could possibly expect from it.
In Ghana, it is a simple case of looking around and knowing your only hope of getting a job in the first place is with a college degree. One goes to college then to make herself competitive for the next available job, not to ensure employment. But since neither your parents nor you can afford the cost of such a degree, the guaranteed SSNIT loan becomes an act of humanity from government and guarantors. Without them, the student would just find another way of paying for school or stay at home and not have that educational asset at all, for better or worse.
Who to blame, then? I vote government. Why does it exist if not to ensure prosperity of the nation? In as far as the public sector has lacked in additional job creation and has failed to create a conducive environment for private sector job growth, I blame the government. My question, therefore, is, “can we sue the government?” Come to think of it, this could make those law school loans worth it.
Prime
*************************************************
This is the way I choose, the destiny I pursue
To help the unfit and the fit
To treat each according to his need
*************************************************
If that sounds like the subprime mortgage crisis that plunged the US into a recession, it’s because it is pretty much like it. It also sounds like the SSNIT (Social Security and National Insurance Trust) loan scheme in Ghana. After all, the government does know the job market is bad, to put it mildly. The universities are fully aware they offer a lot of theoretical discipline and very little employable skill. Yet, they continue to exist.
And each year, thousands of graduates default on SSNIT loans that saw them through college leaving their guarantors, ordinary Ghanaians roped into the scheme, bearing the loss of retirement income among other things. And it’s easy for SSNIT to do this because the government of Ghana is the main employer and can deduct income from the cheques of guarantors.
Should the SSNIT loan scheme be shelved, university admission rates decreased and the building of new universities stopped then? I think not. Universities are in the education business. They offer an asset from which a consumer can generate income over a period of time. They, however, do not guarantee such a stream of income. They cannot, for instance, commit crimes to generate caseloads for more lawyers. I’m being facetious but the point is the onus is on the consumer to understand what such an education is worth to him and what he could possibly expect from it.
In Ghana, it is a simple case of looking around and knowing your only hope of getting a job in the first place is with a college degree. One goes to college then to make herself competitive for the next available job, not to ensure employment. But since neither your parents nor you can afford the cost of such a degree, the guaranteed SSNIT loan becomes an act of humanity from government and guarantors. Without them, the student would just find another way of paying for school or stay at home and not have that educational asset at all, for better or worse.
Who to blame, then? I vote government. Why does it exist if not to ensure prosperity of the nation? In as far as the public sector has lacked in additional job creation and has failed to create a conducive environment for private sector job growth, I blame the government. My question, therefore, is, “can we sue the government?” Come to think of it, this could make those law school loans worth it.
Prime
*************************************************
This is the way I choose, the destiny I pursue
To help the unfit and the fit
To treat each according to his need
*************************************************
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