UNILEVER DONATES TO TEMA SOS VILLAGE (PAGE 28, MARCH 11, 2010)

UNILEVER Ghana has presented books worth GH¢ 12,000 to the SOS Children’s Village in Tema in order to enhance the reading habit of the children in the Village.
The National Director of SOS, Mr Kojo Mattah, who received the books, said they would be distributed to cover the four SOS villages in the country.
He stated that there were SOS villages in Asiakwa , Kumasi and Tamale, in addition to the Tema Village.
Mr Mattah disclosed that there were 400 children in the four villages, with 157 of them being in the Tema Village alone.
He expressed the hope that the books would help the children to improve their reading habits instead of acquiring the habit of sitting before television sets at their leisure periods .
Mr Mattah explained that it had become the habit of some children to make television programmes their priority, at the expense of their academic work .
He was also of the opinion that if leisure hours were utilised profitably , children would acquire more knowledge through books .
Mr Mattah was grateful to Unilever and thanked its management for the donation which he described as ‘wonderful’, but appealed to other corporate organisations to offer more support to the children who were vulnerable.
The Public Affairs Manager of Unilever, Ms Bernice Natue, making the donation, said most of the books were English Literature books .
She explained that Unilever Ghana was responding to an appeal from the management of the Village for support during the recent opening of the Tamale Village.
Ms Natue said Unilever chose to extend care to the children of the SOS Villages because of their vulnerability, and also to ensure that they were educated adequately in order to impact positively on society.
The Tema Village Director, Mr Isaac Kojo Ackom, said the Tema SOS Village was the first to be established in the country in 1974.
He said with its expansion programme , the SOS Village was opened in January 2010, with 30 abandoned destitutes and orphaned children .
Mr Ackom said 80 per cent of the running cost of the SOS Village in Tema was borne by the SOS Kinderdorf International based in Austria, with 20 per cent cost generated internally .
He stated that the Village gave long-term care and most of the inmates were weaned off at the age of 26, after going through kindergarten, primary, JSS and tertiary education .
Mr Ackom said the books would be kept in the library for use by the children.
Some of the books were authored by Emily Bronte, Kobina Sekyi, and Edward Grayson.
There were also books on management in developing countries and Wordsworth Classics