TEMA YOUTH PREPARE FOR AFRICAN CHILD DAY (PAGE 54)

Story: Rose Hayford Darko, Tema

A youth conference in Tema has called on the leadership of the country to come out with policies which will recognise various agreements and conventions that have remained on the drawing board to the detriment of the child.
The conference was held in preparation for the celebration of the African Child day in June 2008 to highlight problems confronting the child and was supported by the Abibiman Foundation in Tema.
Addressing the conference, a 14 year-old-pupil of the TI Ahmadiyya Junior High School, Ms Sarah Agyebeng, said young people drawn from some schools in the municipality met on May 22, 2008 and, after deliberations, identified child labour, child trafficking, poverty, negative peer influence, drug and substance abuse and insecurity, among others, as some of the problems confronting them.
She noted that the best approach to preventing these from happening was for the law makers to urgently give attention to the development of children and young people.
Ms Agyebeng advocated that all fundamental rights enshrined in the Constitution and other relevant national and international protocols, conventions and treaties should be invoked.
She appealed to all political parties in the country to use the Africa Child Forum 2008 to outline in their manifestos aspects which had to do with the child.
Ms Agyebeng also called on stakeholders, especially state institutions, UN Agencies and civil society to support the “Young People’s Manifesto” to help the youth to understand what the various manifestos of political parties propose for their development.
Another 14- year-old student of the Create School in Tema,Master Andrew Amoah, observed that the future development of any country depended on the quantity and quality of investment made in children.
He stated that young people continued to face challenges in realising their potential,and therefore had become vulnerable to socio-economic challenges due to vast differences in household poverty status.
Master Amoah congratulated the government for making efforts to move the country from a mostly agrarian, rural society with high fertility and mortality rates to a middle income country.
He said the government needed to implement a range of supportive policies to reap the full benefits of the potential of the child.
Master Amoah stated that these polices should include improved education, provision of sustainable and affordable local sources of food, enhancing public health outcomes as well as facilitating local investment to create jobs.
The Chief Executive Officer of the Abibimman Foundation, Mr Kwabena Ofosuhene, in an interview said the foundation was supporting the children to raise critical issues affecting the livelihood of children and young people of Ghana.
Mr Ofosuhene urged politicians to make issues affecting children their priority because apart from being future leaders, they held the key to development, and therefore must be well equipped to face the challenges ahead.
He urged all children to participate in the celebration of the African Child in June to create awareness and sympathy for the welfare of the child.