Health
The health of a people is their wealth and it is essential that everyone has access to critical health
services. This, however, is not the case for many rural dwellers in Ghana. Many districts do not have healthcare facilities, and those which do, have to make do with institutions that tend to be under-equipped and provide inadequate health services.
There also tends to be a higher chance of poor people dying from preventable deaths. The rate of child and maternal deaths in particular, is of great concern and is one of the major phenomena SEHP is dedicated to combatting.
The UN estimates that between 1990 and 2013, maternal mortality in Ghana has fallen from 760 to 380 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births, and was projected to have fallen further, to 358 in 2015. However, this is still considerably higher than the MDG 5 target of 190 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births.
There is hope, however, as universal access to emergency obstetric and neonatal care could reduce maternal mortality by 90% to 38 per 100,000 live births. This is why SEHP, through its Safe Delivery initiative, looks to reduce the rates of Child and Maternal mortality across Ghana by providing expectant mothers with basic supplies for safe, infection-free delivery.
In a bid to support the improvement of the health system in Ghana, SEHP is also dedicated to:
- Supplying medical equipment and pharmaceuticals to selected health facilities across Ghana
- Training and Retooling health workers across the country
Education
We believe in the leverage that education gives each generation in their bid to thrive in today’s world. It is an essential requirement for success. This is why we are committed to making education easily accessible to children across all ages, especially in rural areas. Key on our agenda is improving literacy levels of primary and JHS students.
According to a national early grade reading assessment for primary 2 students across 738 public schools in Ghana, run by the GES, RTI, and USAID in 2015, there is a large gap in the children’s ability to read with comprehension showing a pressing need for extra support in the area of literacy.
“Each pupil was shown a grade-appropriate short story and given one minute to read. Overall, pupils’ performance was low for this task. Just over half (51.1%) of the pupils scored zero in English. Thus, more than half of the pupils assessed could not read aloud a single word in a passage in English.”
This is rather alarming, as literacy and comprehension directly determine a child’s ability to learn any subject.
SEHP, therefore, seeks to equip children and teachers with tools and opportunities to improve the situation via our two-part ‘Get Ghana Reading’ campaign:
Women Empowerment
We know the problem: women and girls often suffer first – and suffer the most – when families fall on hard times, and when economies start to crumble. Girls are more likely to be withdrawn from school to support the family by engaging in economic activity, yet, when it comes to raising money for small scale business, women are considered last for credit through micro-finance institutions.
In rural areas, women usually are the financial backbone of families, engaging in petty-trading, farming and food vending. However, they have very little control over family finances and are heavily dependent on the benevolence of their partners.
Quite a number of studies suggest that putting earnings in the control of women doesn’t only speed up development, but increases chances of overcoming poverty, as they usually reinvest a much higher portion of income in their families and communities, spreading wealth beyond themselves. In recognition of this, SEHP seeks to economically empower women by making them self sufficient to break the poverty cycle and accelerate development.
