YILO NFED REWARDS FACILITATORS (Page 28)

Story: A. Kofoya-Tetteh, Koforidua

NINETY-FIVE facilitators of the Non-Formal Education Division (NFED) who voluntarily assisted 2,673 adult illiterates to read and write the Krobo and English languages in the Yilo Krobo District in the Eastern Region have been rewarded.
The group, made up of 77 males and 18 females who were drawn from the various communities in the district and spent 21 months on the job, were each given a sewing machine or ghetto blaster depending on their choices.
The District Chief Executive (DCE), Mr Joseph Adu Tawiah, made the presentation at a ceremony at Somanya, the district capital, at the weekend.
He said the government was determined to eradicate poverty and ignorance from the communities, especially the rural areas, by teaching illiterate adults who could not benefit from formal education due to a number of reasons, to read and write.
He said that would empower them to know more about the various government poverty alleviation initiatives such as the Capitation Grant, the School Feeding Programme and the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), to ensure that they enrolled their children in school and also embrace the NHIS, for affordable and quality healthcare delivery.
“The district has a number of people who through no fault of theirs could not go to school to read and write so the government has to take up that responsibility to school them so that they can at least read about government policies and any other initiatives, to improve their lot”.
The DCE personally supervised some of the literacy classes in the remote areas and commended the NFED, the facilitators and the learners.
He gave the assurance that the assembly would continue to support the adult literacy programme in the area to ensure that most of the illiterate adults would be able to read and write.
The Yilo Krobo District Co-ordinator of the NFED, Mr Nicholas K. Addai, said the learners in addition to being able to read and write the local and English languages, had also been trained in income-generating ventures to make a decent living.
He expressed his gratitude to Mr Samuel Antwi-Berko, the Regional Director of the NFED, and Mr Adu Tawiah for their support towards the success of the programme.
Mr Antwi-Berko, for his part, said since illiteracy made people ignorant on all issues, his outfit would go all out to reduce illiteracy in the region.
He was grateful to the facilitators for their commitment to duty.
Mr Antwi-Berko appealed to religious and traditional leaders to take interest in the programme and supervise adult literacy classes in their areas.
The Chief of Plao, a suburb of Somanya, Nene Tetteh Agblesee, who chaired the function, thanked the government for helping adult illiterates to read and write.
He gave the assurance that chiefs in the area would support the government in that respect.