Dubai Cares To Expand School Feeding Programme In Tamale

The Dubai Government has pledged to expand the Dubai Cares School Feeding Programme being implemented in Tamale in Ghana to embrace the “Wash In Schools” programme to provide sanitation and hygienic facilities.

The pledge was as a result of the participation of a high-level Government and business delegation from Ghana at the Africa Global Business Forum and the Annual Investment Meeting (AIM) held in Dubai in May 2013.

Ms Hanna Serwaa Tetteh, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, announced this on Tuesday when she took her turn at the Meet-The-Press series to highlight issues, initiatives, policies, agreements and challenges pertaining at the Foreign Ministry.

The Minister said the programme was currently feeding 320,000 school children and supporting 80,000 families in the area.

Ms Tetteh said she also used the occasion to hold bilateral discussions with a Cabinet Minister of the United Arab Emirates, Reem Hashimy, with the aim of strengthening the already warm relations existing between the two countries.

She said the Ministry had also facilitated the receipt of a number of scholarships and training programme offered from various countries and international organizations for qualified Ghanaian s to pursue further studies and training in the fields of medicine, food sciences, informatics, economic, security, negotiations, and agriculture, among others.

She noted that some of the offers were KOICA sponsorship for 25 Ghanaian officials and individuals to undertake various post-graduate and training programmes in universities in South Korea, and 16 others from the India Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) for the 2013/2014 academic year for under-graduate, post-post and PhD courses.

Ms Tetteh said some of the training programmes that Ghanaian officials benefited from this year included Regional Workshop on Assistance and protection Against Chemical Weapons for State Parties in Africa; the second Advanced Course on Assistance and Protection.

Others included Assistance and protection Course on Chemical Safety Management for African State parties; IT in Law Enforcement and Advanced Finger Print and Computer  and Entrepreneurship for Small Business Trainers/Promoters.

On promoting the welfare of Ghanaian citizens abroad, the Minister said, the ministry continued to address various complaints brought to its attention by a cross-section of Ghanaian s against foreign individuals, companies and Diplomatic Missions.

She said depending on the merits of such complaints, the Ministry had successfully recovered various assets including end-of-service benefits and seized personal belongings as well as cash for the benefit of the complaints.

“Ghana Missions abroad also attended to the consular and welfare needs of Ghanaian s residing outside the country. A wide range requests were adequately handled by the missions including application, deaths, marriages, renunciation of citizenship, applications for dual citizenship, and many more.

“…President John Dramani Mahama in all his foreign travels, being in London, Paris or Ankara, seizes the opportunity offered him to interact with Ghanaian s on matters of concern and interest to them and equally brief them on political and economic developments at home,” she added.

Ms Tetteh said the missions used the celebration of the country’s 56th Independence Anniversary to inform Ghanaian s about government’s policies, developments in the country, investment opportunities available at home, and the need to take keen interest and actively participate in national development efforts.

She announced that a Diaspora Support Unit had been established at the Legal and Consular Bureau of the Ministry in partnership with the International Organization for Migration (IOM), to compile a comprehensive data base of Ghanaian s in the Diaspora and to coordinate activities of stakeholders in addressing their concerns.

The Unit, she said, would help to tap into the rich knowledge of the large number of Ghanaian s and other African professionals and economically endowed in the Diaspora for the development of the country.