Ghana’s second largest state power generation company, Bui Power Authority (BPA) has organised a health screening for over 800 children and a sensitisation exercise for parents who have children with special needs in two resettlement communities.
The exercises formed part of the BPA’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) of giving back to the communities where it operates.
The purpose of the health screening was to identify children who have health challenges such as ‘Down Syndrome’ and offer support to raise them.
Down syndrome is a genetic disorder associated with physical growth delays, characteristic facial features and mild to moderate developmental and intellectual disability
Over the last few years, the BPA, through its corporate social responsibility, has provided several social interventions including the CHPS compound, the provision of ambulances, scholarships, boreholes and livelihood enhancement projects.
However, the current BPA CEO, Hon. Samuel Kofi Dzamesi reviewed the Authority’s Corporate Social Responsibility to the Project Affected Person’s within the Bui enclave to include children who have special needs.
In this regard, BPA has partnered with Robb Foundation, a non-governmental organisation that specialises in health screening, awareness creation and management of Down Syndrome, to assess the mental state of the children within the Bui Power enclave and propose educational aids for their improvement, provide a report on the exercise and its health impact around the BGS and identify any other child that needs special attention and assistance.
Representing the CEO of BPA at the closing ceremony of the screening programme, the Deputy Chief Executive Officer-in-charge of Engineering, Operations and Technical, Ing Samuel Kow Ansah said the well-being of the project-affected communities especially the children, is of major concern to the Authority, hence the Authority’s partnership with Robb Foundation to screen and sensitise parents on how they can care and raise children with down syndrome.
“The management of children with down syndrome is not easy. We have seen that you alone cannot do it so when we heard that Robb Foundation can screen children with down syndrome and other special needs, we engaged them to come and organise this exercise,” he told the gathering.
He further mentioned that the Authority is committed to the well-being of the communities within the Bui enclave, hence, management’s decision to review its CSR programme to include children with special needs.
The Director of Robb Foundation, Mrs. Mavis Opoku noted that, after the 10 days of medical outreach, children with worm infections, skin infections, malaria and underweight have received treatment and medications.
She said children identified with Down syndrome will be given the needed attention from her outfit and with support from BPA and other health facilities within the area to give the best care and attention to the special children.
She took the opportunity to also educate parents to take the health needs of their wards seriously by adhering to good personal hygiene and by keeping their communities neat at all times.
Source: https://energynewsafrica.com
