Darlings Foundation expands programmes

Story: Salome Donkor
SINCE its establishment in 1998, the Darlings Human Development Foundation (DHDF), a charitable non-governmental organisation, has worked consistently to render quality service to women and children in need, the marginalised and the vulnerable groups in society.
The organisation is dedicated to helping women, children and beneficiary communities to reach their full potential by empowering rural women to develop themselves and to improve their financial position through micro-economic ventures, farming, vocational training, among others.
The programmes of the organisation, which operates in 24 communities in the Agona East District of the Central Region, are geared towards reducing family burden, cutting down on rural-urban drift, child delinquency and teenage pregnancy, and to also sensitise rural dwellers to the importance of education, especially for the girl-child.
The DHDF also aims at providing access to quality education and vocational training in the rural communities and organising educational programmes on sexual reproductive health, sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV and AIDS and enhancing good parenting.
The organisation’s annual report for 2009 indicates that the DHDF believes that by such strategies, the inequalities between the urban and the rural dwellers could be bridged.
The report also indicates that the DHDF has developed in-depth understanding of how to tackle the underlying causes of poverty and, therefore, works with communities to help them find their own solutions, come up with sustainable ways to make a living and take part in changing balance of power, which is often tipped against them.
Since the construction of the multi-purpose Akokoasa District Assembly Primary School, the organisation had been providing educational support, such as allowances for teachers, uniforms for needy pupils, textbooks and sporting kits.
To improve academic standard of the pupils and to attract and retain teachers, the organisation purchased a set of generator for the school to be used in the night for both academic and domestic purposes.
The organisation has also set up a vocational centre at Amanfro No.11 and provides staff of the centre with allowances, educational materials, daily lunch for students and scholarship packages to orphans and the needy.
Through interventions of the organisation, 78 widows have been supported with clothing, cash and other relief items, while the DHDF support services to homes and orphanages have benefited the Osu Children’s Home, Village of Hope, and Christ Foster Home.
The report said in the ensuing year, the organisation hopes to put up a three-unit classroom and a KG/Nursery block for children at Otabilkwaa in the Agona East District of the Central Region, raise funds to provide bursaries for about 20 needy girls in the Darlings Vocational Training Centre and construct the first phase of the Darlings Villa in the Yilo Krobo District.
The report expressed the organisation’s appreciation to all those who supported its operations, and appealed to philanthropic individuals, organisations and corporate bodies for further assistance.