PHILANTHROPIST SUPPORTS MERCY FOUNDATION INTERNATIONAL (PAGE 30, OCT 29)

A TAKORADI-based businessman, Mr Africanus Mensah, has donated GH¢ 1,000 to Mercy Foundation International (MFI), a non-governmental organisation in Takoradi, to take care of the needs of street and abused children in the Sekondi/Takoradi metropolis.
The primary objective of the foundation is to assist the unfortunate needy child to acquire basic education, proper healthcare and be integrated into the society, with assistance from the Department of Social Welfare and the Domestic Violence and Victims Support Unit (DOVVSU) of the Ghana Police Service.
Mrs Janet Mensah, mother of Mr Mensah who made the donation on his behalf, said her son would make more of such donations to needy children as his contribution towards the survival and development of children.
The Director of Mercy Foundation International, Pastor Oliver Osei-Gerning who received the donation, said currently, the foundation was running a shelter for victims of domestic violence, particularly for women and children in the Sekondi/Takoradi metropolis.
In pursuance of its noble objectives, he said, the foundation sheltered 58 trafficked children from April to December 2008, and that, through counselling, care and love to these children and help from the Department of Social Welfare and DOVVSU, the children had now overcome the mental trauma they experienced.
Pastor Osei-Gerning said the foundation had assisted 10 needy brilliant Junior High School pupils by offering them free computer training every three months.
“It must also be put on record that, MFI established four well endowed pre-schools to train illiterate street children with a duration of two years, after which they are integrated into the mainstream formal education sector”, he said.
He said the foundation, in collaboration with the Ministry of Youth and Employment, organised special training for 25 hard-core street children from different parts of the country, who had come to settle in the metropolis.
Pastor Osei-Gerning said the children were trained in various agricultural skills, including piggery, grasscutter rearing, snail farming, rabbitry and vegetable cultivation.