Ghanafin Supports The Needy

The Ghana Financial Services Limited (Ghanafin) has instituted a project to support needy but brilliant students in the country.

The project, to be undertaken in conjunction with the Ghana National Associations of Teachers (GNAT), would provide a full scholarship award to 10 brilliant but needy children of members of GNAT.

Beneficiaries of the scholarship, who are expected to be at the Senior High School level, barring any unforeseen change, would be supported to the end of their tertiary education.

At the launch of the scheme, Managing Director of Ghanafin, Kofi Adu Mensah noted that the project formed part of the company's social responsibility.

He indicated that since its inception four years ago, the non-bank financial institution with a current base of over 64,000 active clients has over 50 per cent of its customers being GNAT members.

“This is just the beginning as we are looking at making it an annual affair by expanding it to cover many students depending on our budget.”

Deputy Minister of Education, Angelina Baiden-Amissah, in her key note address, maintained that though there had been concurrent resolutions by teachers' organizations demanding that government offered free scholarship to two children of each teacher from the kindergarten to the university level, it had not been able to respond to this demand.

After pledging her ministry's support for the educational sector, Hon. Baiden-Amissah appealed to other organizations in commerce, industry and large scale agriculture to emulate the good example of Ghanafin in a bid to support the youth access quality education.

Kwame Pianim, an economist who chaired the function, reiterated that the performance of any economy would be determined by the quality of its education.

Ghana, he said, was on the verge of accelerating growth as the country was the first in West Africa to open its gates to capital market.

“We need to have a programme where corporate social responsibility would be channeled towards education rather than any other activity,” he noted.

By Emelia Ennin