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Deputy Minister for Tourism, Culture and Creative Arts, Dzifa Gomashie has encouraged children from poor background to use education as a tool to change their lives.

She further urged them to focus on their education amidst the challenges confronting them and use their past as a motivational tool to achieve their dreams.

Mrs. Gomashie said this during a visit to some of the vacation classes centres organized by her organization, Value for Life, in collaboration with Centre for Poverty Alleviation, owned by Human Rights Activist, Lawyer Francis Xavier Sosu.

Six schools were selected from the Danfa, Teiman, Pantang, Adenta West and La Nkwantanang electoral areas in Madina, Accra.

The four weeks’ vacation classes were to support children in the Madina community and its environs who could not afford vacation classes, to have the opportunity to improve on their education.

Addressing the children at one of the centres, the deputy minister reiterated the need for children to have quality education. She was of the opinion that education among some other social interventions, can help alleviate poverty and close the gap between the rich and the poor in society.

“You can become the great person you wish to become when you take your education seriously. Education will help you become the big person you wish to become,” she told the pupils.

She further called on parents to show interest in the welfare of other children in their community aside their own children.
“We as parents have the responsibility of ensuring that the children of our neighbours are protected so that they will also feel cared for and part of society,” she said.

She added that, “you can become anything you wish to become; you have to believe in yourself and say to yourself ‘it is possible’.”
On his part, Lawyer Sasu said he was impressed with the response from the pupils and expressed the hope that the pupils will improve in their academic performance when school re-opens.

He, however, urged parents to pay attention to their wards’ academic work in order to ensure that they have the best of life in the future.

He further urged the pupils to defy all odds against them and rise to the height they aspire to be, saying, “I did not come from a rich home, but I did not allow my past to determine who I should become in the future.”

The vacation camp will be climaxed with a rich cultural display by students from the aforementioned schools and an award to students who excelled during the period.