Parliamentary Candidate for the National Democratic Congress, Phylis Naa Koryoo Okunor
Parliamentary Candidate for the National Democratic Congress of Awutu Senya East, Phylis Naa Koryoo Okunor, has launched a foundation aimed at offering succour to the vulnerable and the less privileged.
The Naa Koryoo Foundation is a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) in Ghana which seeks to render selfless service to humanity especially the vulnerable including women, children and persons with disabilities (PWDs) and to unlock the potentials of the youth in the country.
The Foundation is also aimed at promoting education especially, both formal and informal.
It also seeks to ensure proper protection for the marginalised and socially-excluded who can be lifted out of poverty and squalor.
In her address, the founder of the foundation Mrs Phyllis Naa Koryoo stated that the phenomenon of street children has become problematic due to a number of factors.
Among these causal factors she said are rural-urban income disparities, rapid urbanisation, breakdown of the extended family system, single parenthood, physical and sexual abuse.
According to her, any country that does not protect and cater for its children and women is digging its own grave adding that it is the duty of families and all stakeholders to ensure that, the youth are adequately catered for and given all the opportunities for them to unearth their talents.
She revealed that by close of the 20th century, majority of the people in the world were living in poverty, others who were socially-excluded and marginalised were mostly children and women and the story has not radically changed since the beginning of the 21st century.
She said the situation of children and women is getting worse hence the need for all to put shoulders to the wheel to ensure that a similar story is not told by the end of this century.
“In Ghana, the common feature in our busy cities is seeing children between the ages of 10-15 roaming and crisscrossing the streets and engaging in menial jobs for their survival.”
Touching on the achievements of the Foundation, Naa Koryoo stated that the foundation has achieved a lot in its short existence even before being legally registered as an NGO.
Some of the achievements she mentioned were providing counselling services to 500 youth in Kasoa and its environs between 2015 and 2017.
The Foundation also held career guidance programmes in 5 basic schools in Kasoa, Opeikuma and Ofaakor.
The foundation she said has further organized health and reproductive clinical services for five communities to ensure that the youth especially girls are made aware of the negative effects of teenage pregnancy and other reproductive health challenges.
According to her the foundation will extend its services to communities within the Central Region in particular and the nation as a whole since a well-educated youth guarantees development.
She added that the foundation will offer these valuable services to more vulnerable children and youth in the Central Region and across the length and breadth of the country.
She said the foundation will as well train community members in the basic skills of healthy living and how to generate income for their wellbeing and partner with other local and international NGOs to reach out to the wider population.
The foundation will as also work in partnership with all government agencies mandated to handle children and women issues in the country and rescue the youth from a life of crime and make them responsible and productive citizens.
“We are launching this Foundation at the point where the youth of our country are facing so many challenges and it is the duty of the current generation to ensure that the welfare of our youth is catered for. Clearly, no one’s foundation or government can do it alone because it is a collective responsibility and the Naa Koryoo Foundation is bringing new ideas and programmes to the table to enable us deal with issues that are confronting the youth, women and persons with disabilities” she noted.