“The Livelihood Empowerment and Savings for Transformation Project has helped many parents to take care of their children, financially and educationally.
It has also taken care of the health needs of many families, a 14 -year-old Assibi from Zebila in the Upper East Region has narrated to the Ghana News Agency.
Levels of poverty
Poverty is understood in several ways based on arrays of indicators such as; level of household income, employment, access to basic amenities, rate of malnutrition, illiteracy, prevalence of diseases and to sum up, poverty is best described by those who experience it.
Madam Hellen Dondoh, Vice President of the Association of Women with Disabilities in the Saboba District of the Northern Region described poverty as the “Enemy of development” especially to people living with disabilities.
Madam Hellen Dondoh told the Ghana News Agency (GNA) that poverty was a common enemy to development and peace, thus, World Vision Ghana Livelihood Empowerment and Savings for Transformation Project has liberated many from poverty and its related effects, especially in the Saboba District.
Records available at the Ghana Living Standard Survey Round seven (7) report, 2018, indicates that poverty rate still stands at 23.4 percent with rural areas suffering more endemic poverty than urban centres, coupled with widespread inequalities and disparities in access to economic, social and institutional opportunities across the country.
Similarly, the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) indicates that three in four children (73.4 percent) in Ghana are multi- dimensionally poor, facing at least three deprivations at the same time.
With the coming of the Covid-19 pandemic and ever-growing issues of climate change, floods, unemployment and conflicts, more people including children have been pushed into extreme poverty thus making the progress of reducing poverty far slow to meet the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG1) on ending poverty by 2030 (World Bank 2020).
World Vision Ghana today joins the United Nations to commemorate the World Poverty Day; a day set aside annually on October 17 to raise awareness on ending poverty and all its forms in the world.
The day also provides opportunity to have acknowledge on the efforts and struggles of people living in poverty, a chance for them to make their concerns heard and to recognize those working with the poor and destitute towards eradicating poverty.
This year’s World Poverty Day is on the theme “Building forward together: Ending persistent poverty, Respecting all people and our planet”.
The theme emphasizes on the need to eschew discrimination against people living in poverty and the need to build on the moral and legal framework of human dignity at the core centre of policy and action while transforming human relationship with nature.
The theme further reminds humanity the need to collaborate and not to leave any one behind, by encouraging and supporting people living in poverty to lead their own change.
Role of World Vision
Mr Maxwell Amedi, Food Security and Resilience Technical Programme Officer, World Vision Ghana who spoke to the GNA, said “World Vision as a Christian Organization is always moved by millions of people, especially children in the country who are in endless cycle, suffering as result of extreme poverty, early marriage, violence, oppression, disaster, conflicts, child labour and orphanhood”.
He added that over the years World Vision Ghana and partners through the Livelihood Empowerment and Savings for Transformation Project positively impacted lives geared towards ending poverty.
“On this day a total of 4,526 Savings for Transformation (S4T) groups comprising 117,890 members, representing 26,654 males and 91,236 females across the country have been beneficiaries on this initiative, making them economically resilient” he noted.
Mr Justice Tiigah, Food Security and Resilience Project Officer, World Vision Ghana, at the Bawku West District reinterated the contribution of the S4T on ending poverty in the various communities, saying “I am happy to be one of the transformational agents God had used to empower the communities with the Good news of S4T meant to reduce poverty everywhere”.
World Vision Ghana and partners in commemorating World Poverty Day have called for institutional and stakeholders’ collaboration to ensure that the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal one (SDG1) on ending poverty by 2030 becomes a reality for mutual benefits of all, especially developing countries.
