ABOUT 300 management and staff of Opportunity International Savings and Loans (OISL) from its branches on Saturday marking its annual Staff Welfare Day, embarked on a 5km health walk from Ayi Mensah to Peduase where they were taken through aerobics to exercise the body.
Led by the Board Chairman Mr Katey Assem and other top executives, the staff later spent the rest of the day with students and staff of Akropong School for the Blind in line with their corporate social responsibility, focusing on the intensity of their activities on Persons with Disability over the past six years.
As part of the celebration of the Staff Welfare Day, Opportunity International dined and interacted with the students, donated food items, paid for the cost of repairs for over 50 braille typewriters for effective teaching and inaugurated a urinal built for the school to enhance sanitation.
Speaking later to the media, Mr Assem stressed on the importance of regular exercise for a healthy living, adding that the event was to increase awareness and understanding of disability issues and offer support as they have done annually in the past years.
Head of the school, Mr Atsu Homadzi, on receiving the donation, expressed appreciation to OISL for the continued show of love and concern for the welfare of the students over the years. He reiterated that ‘disability is not inability’ as boldly inscribed on the wall of the assembly hall.
He said People With Disabilities (PWDs) rather require empathy but not sympathy such that they should not be pitied but be provided with opportunities to enable them to overcome their disabilities and become responsible citizens. Mr Homadzi prayed to other benevolent organizations for support emulating OISL.
Similarly, the northern sector branches of the institution will have its annual welfare health walk on the 8th of June, 2019 starting and ending at the Baba Yara sports Stadium through some principal streets in Kumasi.