Poverty And Streetism Eradication; The Role Of The Youth. A Look At Love Foundation Club, A Youthful Charity Organisation

“Poverty has buried many dreams and visions that could change the world”. - Marcus Anafu

According to the United Nations, poverty is fundamentally the inability of having choices and opportunities, a violation of human dignity, the lack of basic capacity to participate effectively in society. Poverty implies insecurity, powerlessness and exclusion of individuals, households and even whole communities. Poverty has rendered many, especially children to live on the street. This is no secret in Ghana, in Africa and the world at large for streetism is one of the commonest problems in the world today. We cannot number to an end the effects of poverty and streetism but the touching effect is that it buries many dreams and visions that could change the world. We can never annihilate the truth that we know the plight of those who the street is a home to.

Poverty reduction is a sheer responsibility of all of us but most essentially the youth for they are the frontier and catalyst for change in society. Aside government’s strategies of ending poverty more specifically streetism through ‘free’ health care and education systems, controlling of over population, provision of subsidies, affordable housing projects and the infrastructural development of the rural areas, love or in a precise sense, charity can help alleviate the plight of those we see on our streets especially children to whom the street serves as a home. And this is just what in addition to government strategies the youth can do help save the situation.

The youth with the little they have can help make life better for the children who live on our streets. This flows out of passion, zeal and love. Most youth groups formed in our society are for in a way making society a better place for us all with some being like what we can call pressure groups advocating for the causes they stand for. In trying to make the society better for us all, the youth unknowingly close their eyes to those things they themselves can do to help and only and always look up to the government or others for they can or should do.

A great man called Jack London once said “a bone to a dog is not charity. Charity is the bone shared with the dog, when you are just as hungry as the dog.” But most times our desire and social responsibility of helping those in need is marred by our excuse that we ourselves don’t have much to help others forgetting that we rise when lifting others. Coming together as one, the youth can help bring smile to the faces of the less privilege, the vulnerable and the afflicted by embarking on good kind works. To be more emphatic and precise, the role of the youth is to use his/her talent or skill in doing something positive that will help curb the issue of poverty and streetism or homelessness among us.

A perfect image and model of youths coming together to solve the problems of poverty on our society is the Love Foundation Club. Unlike any other youth group in the world, Love Foundation Club, a family of young people from across Ghana, Lesotho-South Africa, Cameroon, Uganda, Nigeria and Sierra Leone is one of the greatest youth charity organization contributing massively towards the fight against poverty, illiteracy and streetism among the poor, needy and children in our society.

With the motto “ the hand that gives save lives”, this foundation with its sole mission of making life worth living for the less privileged, street children and persons living with disabilities and even orphans in our orphanages has put into work several charity projects in their bid to bring a positive change. Love Foundation Club seeks to curb the rising rate of poverty through charity work, sensitization, encouragement and motivations and skill and talent development.

As youth who we say are the future, LFC as the organization is briefly called seeks to employ the God given talents of its members to generate funds for the projects they are embarking on. They have an acapella music group within the club which sings to raise funds for charity. And it is always a marvel when you hear and watch them sing, it is really a group of talented youths coming together with the vision of making our society a paradise for all. As young people particularly students, this organization is able to as at now carry out their mission greatly, thanks to the individual dues contributed by its members and support of some other charity organisations. With their focus not only on those on the streets, Love Foundation Club has visited a couple of orphanages in Accra.

Though just a year old, Love Foundation Club has also made donations to some deprived communities in the country such as Sabooro and Kasingo in the Northern Region of Ghana. The club also donated tons of clothes, footwear and goodies to the kids, physically challenged as well as the parents in the village tagged to be the most deprived and poorest in the Central Region of Ghana with the name “Jesus Akra”.

The foundation has also embarked on a couple of blood donations of which they took chance of its recent one to visit the sick at the 37 Military Hospital a leading hospital in Ghana with items such as fruits. Love Foundation Club’s legacy though just a year old has made the club to be labelled as the as one of the “greatest youth charity organization in the country bearing its Founder and Chief Executive Officer the tag “the youngest CEO in the country”.

Out of the zeal, passion and commitment in members of the foundation, LFC further looks forward into making their mission and visions fruitful in the future by outlining down projects they are to undertake such as, a Campaign dubbed "save the street children" which would involve walks on the streets to encounter children sleeping under bridges with no food or cloth, providing them with shelter, food, clothing and also place them in a comfortable condition to help them become what they dream of becoming, building a school and an orphanage home to support these innocent children who happen to fall victims of living on the streets and several number of charitable projects. They are open for public membership and support.

These things are all things every youth, as an individual or as a group, can do to help curb the plight of the less privileged among us. For one of our call as human beings in this world is to love. Love Foundation Club is just the picture of what the youth groups in our world today can do to aid in the fight against poverty, illiteracy and street life among the poor, the needy and children in our various societies. Let us all take lessons from Love Foundation Club and stop waiting on governments and others to embark on the fight to annihilate poverty and streetism.

Akakpo Elikem Kwabla.
Public Relations Officer, Love Foundation Club.