Update from Ghana

The King’s Village continues to be an outstanding project helping some of Africa’s most poor and vulnerable people.

The school continues to impact the children and give them a standard of education they would never normally get access to. Many of those that finished the school in September have gone on to higher education, studying a range of subjects that will going forward, help them to impact their own communities.

They have opened a new crèche facility for 1-3 year olds. This facility is much needed to help the staff on site who have no child care available and often have to leave their children with family many miles away while they come into work.

The hospital has been hugely helped by gifts sent via Operation Orphan towards machines that will both benefit the sick and also help with finance generation.

The numbers attending in particular the maternity block continue to grow at fast rate, putting more pressure on the very limited facilities.

The gift of a new commercial washing machine is a great help in combating infection and ensuring clean bed linen is available at all times.

The blood electrolyte analyser is helping give a full opportunity for proper and thorough analysis without the delay of having to send samples to Tamale which is an hour away.

The Nutrition Centre has this year been at capacity many times, the provision of the HDU has been indispensable. Having full time nursing staff being on site is making a huge difference in prompt nursing care for the most sick and vulnerable children. In addition the completion of the small accommodation unit has meant that we can now offer 24 hour care for the malnourished children

Our biggest challenge though is the lack of support coming from UNICEF, who provided rehydration medication. They have withdrawn all support for Ghana leaving a huge hole. While we have raised some extra funds to help, it isn’t enough and the unit is struggling. This has the knock on effect of the children suffering, some of them making very slow progress and some even dying before they can gain sufficient weight.

We are exploring other avenues of support which we hope will be consistent and therefore help us once again to save the sickest and most needy children.

Terry and I will be returning again to Ghana in January 2020. This will be our 23rd trip over the past 15 years, Terry who is now 75 is as committed as he was the first time we went out.

Thank you for your support,

Terry and Ann Carpenter