is a 20 member Registered Basic School Children between the ages of 9 and 14 years from various communities and schools initiated in January 2007.Volunteer Project Report
MALTITI CHILD FOUNDATION, which is also known as MCF, is a voluntary and community based outreach organization, registered in Ghana with an authorized business to engaged in lobbying and advocacy for Child Rights and development.
The term "Maltiti" is a common phrase in Northern Ghana meaning “Support us to Develop." OUR VISION is to make child rights realizable and practicable by all children, especially deprived and underprivileged children in northern Ghana. The need for establishing this organization was found after a regional participatory research appraisal, of the trend of events in Northern Ghana and the World at large by Prince. The core issues, with particular reference to the plight of rural children who are marginalized and deprived of basic rights and necessities, required for their social upbringing and livelihood. MCF was therefore initiated to gear its efforts towards advocating for support to the rural child to also meaningfully participate in social and economic programmes in Rural Communities, so as to facilitate access for them to be also involved in national development.
The arrival of Nelleke and Marcha
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On the 3rd of January 2007, MCF received her first volunteer from NORGHAVO – Tamale. She was NELLEKE, 50 years, from Holland.
Marcha, on the other hand, was also received at the office on the 7th of February 2007.
There were both received with delight by all Staff, including some members of the Board of Directors, followed by lots of interactions.
Nelleke's and Marcha's first day at MCF
Soon after the arrival of Nelleke in the office, she begun seriously working closely with the Director on plans, strategise and activities for the organisation, as well as made contacts and organised meetings with resource people who could be of great assistance to the organisation. Through that, the organisation came out with its quarterly work plan on a number of activities, which is currently on going. These include:
- Teaching in the school
- Extra evening classes and library studies for children
- Community Children's Club and
- Women's group.
Marcha came to team up with her, and together with a backup from Ishmail, another devoted and committed staff in the organization, MCF gained grounds and much recognition from the community.
ACHIEVEMENTS
A survey conduct by Nelleke and the Director in 2 schools within the community proved that most of the children could not read or write. Therefore Nelleke and Marcha took it as a responsibility upon themselves to address this challenge. Marcha even wrote a detailed report on her school. To read the report please click here.
Nelleke was sent to an Arabic and English school called HASSANIYA, while Marcha was sent to another Islamic school called GUMANI NURI-ISLAM. What they did in the schools was to give special attention to children with very poor English Background during school hours. Below are some pictures on that:
Kind Gestures
A month after Nelleke came, her Daughter, Ellen, followed up to visit her mother at her work place. Ellen on her visit to MCF office donated a wide range of stationeries and other playing items for children to the organization, which was received by a Board member of the organization. Meanwhile, Nelleke herself brought some reading books, which was used to start with the Library studies, and her husband who also joined her up later, brought some more books for the organization. They crowned it up with a cash donation of about 200 euros equivalent.
Marcha on her part also presented some drawing, writing and painting materials to the organization and has also promised a cash donation to be followed later.
The Way Forward
Parents of the children commended the organisation for their effort and implored the organisation not to relinquish that service, as it is the greatest way to ensure the best development of their children.
However, many thanks goes to Nelleke, Marcha and Norghavo for their selfless and dedicated service to MCF, and we hope that there will be a consistent service of volunteers to ensure the sustainability of this project.
In respect to sustaining the project, MCF is currently working on a work plan, through a participatory approach with the children, consultants and selected community members, which is aimed at ensuring absolute transformation on attitudinal change of society towards the well being and development of children, especially the less privileged.
The work plan will be made available on the site on completion.
Conclusion
I conclude with the recommendation that Nelleke and Marcha were very positive influential people and as a result of this, volunteers should continue to help MCF in its trying moment to achieve its goals and also build the capacity and confidence of vulnerable children in the community. Volunteers should feel free to give their support to MCF