Meaningful Life International was privileged to host Mr. Tom Albert Mc Lane from Convoy of Hope. He
arrived on August 7th and departed on August 11th 2022. The purpose of the visit was to conduct
feasibility studies on the potential partnership to provide food to about 5000 school children from
deprived communities in Ghana. The team used the opportunity to assess MLI’s readiness and capacity to
run the program after a successful approval.
Basic social need such as food remains a major challenge to access basic education in most of the
deprived communities and peri-urban areas in Ghana. Government over the years have been trying to
address the challenge through it’s school feeding programs but there is still a huge gap due to
inadequate funding. A recent survey conducted by our field team indicates that a lot of children are
staying away from the class room due to hunger. These children would rather engage in menial jobs as
housemaids or other petty jobs that would guarantee them at least one meal a day rather than going to
school to ‘starve’. Those who manage to weather the storm to attend school are unable to pay much
attention during classes and are therefore not able to study well. This situation accounts for over 65% of the
educational challenges in rural Ghana. Parents of these children are mostly squatters, peasant farmers
and petty traders whose incomes are so low to be able to meet the basic needs of the family.
During the visit, the team paid courtesy call on the general superintendent of the Assemblies of God Ghana,
Rev. Prof. Frimpong Manso. He was very happy and delighted about the prospects of Convoy of Hope’s
partnership with MLI and hopes that the process of this partnership would roll on quickly to bring relief
to the thousands of these deprived school children. The team also met with the Members of Parliament
(senators) from the beneficiary communities as part of the stakeholder engagements to better
appreciate the issues and also solicit their views on how best to make this project more sustainable.
These excited senators could not hide their joy even at this point. They strongly believe that this
program would definitely lead to increase in both enrollment and retention in the schools in these
deprived communities. These children would be encouraged to go to school because they would have
food to eat. They would be able to study better and therefore, quality education is assured. The
senators have pledged to support MLI to implement this program to ensure there is equity and
accountability.
The team also visited the field to see for themselves some of the schools and communities. As fate
would have it, the team had the opportunity to see and taste the food being served to these children
and it was obvious there is urgent need to improve on the nutritional balance of the meals.
We are very grateful to Convoy of Hope for this preliminary visit and we are calling on you, our faithful
partners to help us provide food to these children to save their future. We know that this is a viable
project. It would help improve not just the educational standards in these communities but also the
general wellbeing of these children who are the future leaders. We cannot wait to have you come on
board to partner with us to reach out to these precious children through the school feeding program.