Plan Sweden Team Assesses Projects

By William Yaw Owusu

Wednesday, 01 November 2006
BARELY a year after Plan Sweden and Ghana collaborated to stage a musical concert to raise funds in support of child development programmes in the country, the Swedish counterparts have returned to assess the impact of the programme.

The assessment will involve interviews of local people, television coverage and visits to project sites by the three-member delegation.
Based on their report, Sweden could strategize for future fund raising campaigns and sponsorship.

Last year’s concert saw about 28,000 sponsors from Sweden raising a total of 590,000 dollars to support child development projects.

Currently the proceeds are being used to build pre-schools, basic schools, teachers accommodation, a community library as well as child-rights support programmes in about nine communities around Bawjiase in the Central Region.

At a meeting in Accra on Monday before the team left for the beneficiary communities Ms. Adelaide Nartey, sponsorship manager of Plan Ghana, said they were currently operating in five programme areas of three regions namely Central, Eastern and Upper West.

Ms. Nartey said Plan Ghana had sponsored more than 24,000 children in their education since the organization started operation in the country.

Mrs. Emelia Allan of the Bawjiase programme area of Plan Ghana, said the projects were being managed by the communities themselves and the idea was to ensure all round participation.

She said they had complemented governments effort to send medical care to the doorsteps of rural people and had supported various health programmes such as immunization, breast feeding, birth registration exercise and adolescent reproductive health activities.

Bjorn Tjarnberg, a member of the Swedish delegation said, "We want to use the Odumase experience to build on our effort to support more children.