Child Rights Int’l Salutes Rebecca Akufo Addo

US First Lady Melania Trump (R) poses with Ghana's First Lady Rebecca Akufo-Addo prior to their meeting at Jubilee House in Accra, Ghana, on October 2, 2018, as she begins her week-long trip to Africa to promote her 'Be Best' campaign. (Photo by SAUL LOEB / AFP) (Photo credit should read SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images)

Child Rights International (CRI), a child-centred organisation, has commended the First Lady, Mrs Rebecca Akufo-Addo for her continuous commitments and support to helping improve the well-being of children and mothers in the country.

The organisation, particularly mentioned two projects put up by the First Lady in Kumasi and Accra, under the Rebecca Foundation, as an “exceptional gesture from the first lady and her team”.

In a statement issued To the media in Accra, CRI said the works of the first Lady deserved a national honour.

“The welfare principle of the children’s Act emphasis the need for all persons to make the best interest of children paramount in matters that concerns them. The guest by the First Lady to personally mobiles resources to defend the best interest of children is commendable,” the statement said.

The statement was signed by the Executive Director of CRI, Mr Bright Kweku Appiah.

Background 

The Rebecca foundation has, since last year, been rolling out various programmes and interventions to helping improve the wellbeing of children and mothers.

The foundation, last year, launched a project to inculcate the culture of reading in children in support of efforts to build a highly literate society.

During the same year, in Kumasi in the Ashanti Region, the foundation inaugurated a Mother and Baby Unit with a Paediatric Intensive Care section at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital. The facility was put up at a cost of GHc 10 million.

Earlier this year, the foundation again inaugurated a modern Paediatric Intensive Care Unit for the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital in Accra.

The 41-bed facility is the first of it’s kind in the history of the hospital.

These projects, the statement said would go a long way to address the basic challenges that “affects children’s growth and at the same time helping remove the plights mothers of these children face at the hospital.

CRI pushes 

Touching on the hospital project put up by the Foundation, the statement said the First Lady had exhibited that she understood the pains of motherhood and that mothers ought to be given the best of healthcare.

“The Right to health is a basic fundamental rights of all children and therefore any effort in achieving such goal must he welcomed and accepted,” the statement stated.

On the reading projects, the statement noted that the initiative from the First Lady would go a long way to improve the reading habits of children and ultimately shape their knowledge as the future leaders.

“CRI sees these projects as a good course and would therefore applaud the first lady for it,” it added.

The statement said the organisation was willing and ready to extend any hand of support to the foundation in carrying out its initiatives of helping improve the wellbeing of children.

It also urged  The First Lady continue to her  effort in the promotion of children’s rights to health, while urging the media to promote intervention of individuals who are working had to promote the welfare of children in the country.