Community leaders of the Aponoapono community in the Suhum Municipality have appealed to the government to consider introducing the schoolfeeding programme in schools in deprived communities and villages where the programme is needed most.
They explained that the current practice of having the programme in schools in the cities where the children were from rich homes and so do not patronise the foods served, was a disservice, not only to the children in deprived communities who really need the food, but also a waste of resources for the country.
Citing his village as an example, the Community Child Protection Chairman of Aponoapono, Frank Odoi, said that due to financial challenges and parents’ inability to feed their children, most of the children in the community, especially girls, were constantly absent from school.
Worst still, he added, Okada riders in the community were taking advantage of that in the past to have sex with the girls and consequently impregnate some, who ended up abandoning school.
Explaining, he said the okada riders, under the guise of solving the hunger of the girls and providing for other needs that their parents were not living up to, such as provision of sanitary pads, give the girls a pack of prepared noodles, otherwise known as laptops in the community’s parlance, and with these they succeed in getting the girls to have sex with them.
Laptop, according to the community people, refers to prepared noodles or spaghetti served in a pack.
The way the pack opens is similar to a computer laptop, hence the name ‘laptop’.
Mr Odoi said this at Aponoapono when officials of Plan International Ghana led journalists from Accra, Ho, and the Oti and Eastern regions to assess a project known as Rooting for Change that they introduced in the community in 2024 to address the high unintended pregnancies among adolescent girls and young women in the Suhum Municipality.
‘Laptops’
Surrounded by some heads of schools in the community, opinion leaders and officials of the Aboafa Cocoa Cooperatives, he lamented, “They were using the ‘laptops’ to get the girls; and the girls, too, after getting them, they see no reason to go to school. Even when their parents ask them to go, they won’t.”
He said access to sanitary pads for the girls was also a major problem, for which reason the girls were relying on the okada riders to give them money to purchase them every month and through that they become vulnerable to their activities.
Fortunately, he said the situation has improved now, with the introduction of the Rooting for Change project that ensured, among others, that the girls get sanitary pads and are also sensitised about sexual health and reproduction.
Headmaster
The heads of some of the schools in the community shared similar concern.
They said the establishment of all-girls football teams, the arrangement of tournaments and other sensitisation programmes they had for the girls, as well as their parents, which came with the project had all contributed to boosting the confidence of the girls and as such, the majority of them now no longer respond to the advances of the okada riders.
Throwing light on the project, the Project Manager of Rooting for Change, Bless Vieku, said the project, which is expected to end in September 2026, was being implemented with funding from Tony’s Chocolonely, a Dutch chocolate manufacturer, and was being piloted in Aponoapono and Jato under the Aboafa and Asetenapa Cocoa Cooperatives, respectively, with the possibility of a future scale-up to cover nearby cocoa-growing communities.
He mentioned the journey so far in the project to include the establishment of adolescent clubs in six schools in the two project communities, training of peer educators, organisation of community dialogues around youth sexual reproductive health issues, engagement of traditional and religious leaders, establishment of girls’ football clubs and organisation of football tournaments.
Source:
www.graphic.com.gh