UNHCR donates educational materials to Ampain community schools
The United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), on Thursday donated furniture and e-readers worth GH¢441,634 to the Ampain community schools which served pupils at the Ampain Refugee Camp, in the Ellembelle District of the Western Region.
The Ampain Community Junior High School (JHS) received 40 hexagon tables, 170 dual desks, 120 mono desks, 240 chairs and 10 teachers’ tables and chairs.
The UNHCR also donated 100 e- reader to help improve the reading culture of the children at the Ampain Community D/A primary School
Presenting the items to the schools, the Head of UNHCR Field Office in Takoradi, Samuel Dzikunu, said that the donation aimed to create an enabling environment for the refugee children and the youth in the host communities to access education to develop their potentials.
He explained the donations were part of the UNHCR Ghana’s programme that targeted not only refugees, but Ghanaians as well as host communities particularly in health, education, security and livelihood.
The idea, he said, also hoped to build their individual and collective resilience that contributed to a peaceful co-existence, “the donation of the furniture is to ease overcrowding and to create a conducive environment for teaching and learning.”
The e-readers, Mr Dzikunu explained, would promote the culture of reading among pupils and also bridge the challenge of the textbook gaps in the schools, noting that the refugee situation globally had increased on scope and complexity.
In 2018, for example, he reported that the Global Compact on Refugees (GCR) was adopted to help redefine how countries responded to refugee situations, the most significant, was to ensure that they were included in national development plans and services.
A key objective of the compact, he added, was to ease the pressure on host countries and communities which promoted inclusion and social cohesion between refuges and their hosts.
Describing the initiative as appropriate, the manager at the Ampain Refugee Camp, Joachim Somevie, believed that improving reading habits among the youth would help develop their individual capacity.
The headmaster for Ampain D/A JHS, Rexford Afful, noted that the donation had eased the challenges of furniture that the schools faced for the past five years.
The headmaster for Ampain D/A Primary, Dauda Musa, cautioned the pupils that the e-readers were not for viewing of videos.
FROM CLEMENT ADZEI BOYE, AMPAIN CAMP
