Christian NGO establishes clinic and school in Bontanga

A Tamale-based Christian non-governmental organisation that is committed to providing quality education and other pressing needs of deprived areas in the Northern Region, has built a clinic and a school in Bontanga near Kumbungu.

The health centre is equipped with a laboratory, a pharmacy, an operating theatre, ambulances and four bungalows for resident doctors and nurses.

It also has X-ray and scanner machines.

The school has three classrooms, a nursery and a resource centre. The two projects cost three billion cedis.

Children who gain admission into the school are sponsored free of charge and are adopted by some donors in UK.

They are fully catered for and are provided with uniforms and other gifts to motivate them to stay in school.

Mr Ben Owusu-Sekyere, Director of the Kings' Village, speaking at the inauguration of the two facilities at Bontanga on Wednesday, said apart the NGO was also helping communities in the district to get access to good drinking water and environmental cleanliness.

He said the NGO now has the Kings' School, the King's Medical Centre and the Kings' Micro Credit and Vocational Centre, all aimed at reducing the poverty levels of the people in the community.

Mr Owusu-Sekyere, who is the head pastor of The Kings International Christian Centre, said 130 children from the community were benefiting from the education package while more than 2,000 patients had been treated at the health centre since it started operating a month ago.

He said the school would start a programme in September that would give adults above 30 years the opportunity to attend classes and learn under scholarship.

Mr Owusu-Sekyere said the project had also provided four communities with clean water and toilet facilities while some needy women had been trained in soap making and some of the women assisted with loans to start their own businesses.

Mr Owusu-Sekyere expressed the hope that community leaders in its catchments area would support the NGO to expand facilities.

Until the set up of the Kings' Medical Centre people of Kumbungu and its surrounding communities had to travel to Tolon, Savelugu or Tamale for health service delivery.

Mr Wahab Suhiyini Wumbei, the Tolon/Kumbungu District Chief Executive, (DCE) stressed the importance of such facilities in the lives of rural people and said the Kings' projects would help develop the communities.

He said the provision of the medical centre and the school fell in line with the government's core priority areas and advised the NGO not to relent in its efforts to expand facilities.

He said efforts by the Kings Projects were complementing the district assembly's efforts especially in areas of sanitation, education and provision of potable water.

This would reduce the guinea worm disease in the district, which leading in guinea worm in the region.

Mr David Bignall, a representative of the Christian Centre (UK), said Christian brethren in UK would continue to lend their support for development projects in Kings' project operational areas.

He said if the facilities were sustained, donors in UK would continue to support development in other areas in the region.