Vlisco nominees donate to charity

Two nominees of the Vlisco Women's Month Award have made separate presentations to some institutions and individuals in the country.

The nominees; Mrs Anita Erskine-Amaizo and Ms Ayesha Bedwei, made the presentations as part of their campaign to win the ultimate prize of being crowned the Vlisco Woman for 2014.

On the theme 'Dare to Dream Campaign', the award was instituted to honour the outstanding achievements of West and Central African women by identifying and rewarding those who inspire others to realise their dreams. 

To this effect, Vlisco nominated three to four women in each of the countries such as Ghana, Nigeria, Benin, Togo, Ivory Coast, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo for the Vlisco Women's Month Award this year.

Elected by public vote, the winners, who become Vlisco's new ambassadors for 2014, will be revealed during the Vlisco Women's Month Award Night on  April, 5, 2014. 

Another nominee for the Vlisco Women's Month 2014 awards, Mrs Eugenia Tachie-Menson, has donated a quantity of items worth GH¢1,500, made up of baby diapers and other items to the Maternity Unit of the Achimota Hospital in Accra. Anita Erskine-Amaizo

To exhibit her passion and commitment to girl-child education and women empowerment in Ghana, Mrs Erskine-Amaizo ended her campaign with the launch of the Anita Erskine Vlisco Dream Fund.

She made two separate donations totalling GH¢5,000 to support the education of some students who are in need of assistance.

The first donation was made to the Opportunities Industrialisation Centres (OIC) Ghana, where along with the staff and instructors of OIC, five students with immense potential but in need of a financial push in to realise their dreams, were each given a full scholarship for the two-year skills training at the OIC.

Another donation was made to little Thelma Adiita, who came from the Upper East Region to receive her scholarship after which a mammoth fund-raising programme was organised for 10 other young children in the Arthur Educational Complex located in Wiaga, a town in the Builsa North District of the Upper East Region.

In her remarks, Mrs Erskine-Amaizo said, “I am a firm believer in education. My dream is to empower more and more Africans through education.”

“Vlisco gave me the inspiration to do this through my nomination and some of my loyal friends, clients and close affiliates such as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ecobank, Hannah and Bel Aquah and Michael Amankwaa helped me to do this! I'm in awe. I am now convinced more than ever that I am indeed doing the right thing in my life.”

Mrs Erskine-Amaizo also made a donation to the African Women's Development Fund (AWDF), a grant-making foundation that supports local, national and regional women's organisations working towards the empowerment of African women and the promotion and realisation of their rights. Ayesha Bedwei

Ms Ayesha Bedwei, for her part, also made a donation to the Asthma Unit of the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital last Friday.

The donation was made with support from her co-workers and Vlisco, who helped to raise money to buy some medical equipment for the unit.

The equipment included three pediatric nebulisers, two pediatric volumetric spacers and four boxes of salbutamol nebules.

Her reason for choosing the unit was because her daughter was asthmatic and therefore, she knows what parents go through when they visit the unit, and also because there is the urgent need to make Ghanaians aware of the disease. 

Receiving the donation, Professor Damenla Goka, Head of the Department of Child Health at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, mentioned that not enough attention was paid to asthma in Ghana, and added that those who were affected by it were not receiving the necessary treatment, because it was not a common illness in Ghana but in recent years, she indicated, more children had been born with asthma.