Chief institutes measures to guide children

Akim Sekyere, May 8, GNA - Parents whose children are seen walking on the streets of Akim Sekyere after 8 pm or at funerals would pay a fine of 500,000 cedis unless the parent has sought permission for them to that effect.
This was announced by the chief of Akim Sekyere, Barima Afenhyia II at a sod-cutting for commencement of an expansion work at the Akim Sekyere SDA Secondary School on Friday.
The project, which has been estimated to cost 550 million cedis is expected to be completed in December, this year to give the school which was established ten years ago, a facelift.
He explained that, the measures were to help check the falling of moral standard in the area and a means of encouraging education in the area as a contribution of the community to the efforts of the SDA Church in education, added, "all the fines realise would be used in supporting the school".
Barima Afenhyia announced that all drinking bars in the community are to open between the hours of 4pm to 8am each day and people who would not comply would be made to pay a fine of 500,000 cedis.
He explained that the regulation of the time for the opening of drinking bars in the community was to help control the way people drink alcoholic beverages in the community and to promote hardwork. Barima Afenhyia commended the SDA church for their foresight in establishing the secondary school in their area and pledged the support of the people in moving the school forward.
He also disclosed that 50 brilliant but needy children from the town would benefit from the Okyeman Education Fund.
The President of the Ghana Union Conference of the Seventh Day Adventist Church (SDA), Pastor Peter Owusu-Mensah called on all stakeholders of education to play their role to ensure that no child was deprived of the right to education as stipulated in the constitution. He stressed the need for parents to be more committed to their wards education and explained that giving their wards the best of education was the only legacy that could not be taken away from them by any means.
He said, "if you build houses and acquire other properties for your children was a good idea but if you do that at the expense of education, it's a life-long mistake that can never be reversed," he said.
Pastor Owusu-Mensah observed that, most parents were not living up to expectation as far as education of their children was concerned and this has made some of the children to become liabilities to society because of their poor educational backgrounds and therefore resorted to anti-social behaviours like stealing and prostitution just to get something to live on.
Pastor Owusu-Mensah who is also the board chairman of the Adventist Relief Agency (ADRA) presented twenty bales of second hand clothing to the chief to be distributed to the needy and less privileged in the area in fulfilment of a request made to ADRA by the chief.