MESSAGE FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

(Mrs iddrisu Asana)

INTRODUCTION/PREAMBLE

Community Health and Rural development Programme has undergone changes in the name but the princples and ideologies remain the same.This became necessary because management found the need to change the name to reflect on the dynamics of operations of the organisation. The new name is now Livelihood Empowerment Center (LIVE). It is our wish that all our partners and the entire society refer to us as such and therefore all correspondence to the forma name be updated as such. this new name has been updated at the registerar generals department, Accra Ghana.

Colleagues in the NGO fraternity, the media, donors/sponsors, it is a great honour for me to present to you a message from the management and board of directors of LIVE. It is absolutely clear that the need for sound economic development, scientific technology and industrialization are the ultimate priorities of most countries world wide especially developing countries including Ghana. A countries desire to achieve economic stability, human rights and freedoms, poverty reduction, food security, quality health care and affordable education for all will remain an elusion if conscious efforts are not made by all stakeholders to achieve a holistic development approach especially in deprived rural areas and farming communities.

Sparsely development occurs within the southern sectors of most developing countries especially Ghana, leaving the northern sectors which are already deprived to wallow in abject poverty, critical health hazards, outmoded cultural practices and high illiteracy rates just to mention a few.

It is no surprise that the first president and prime minister of the republic of Ghana made education in the north free and compulsory as against their southern counterparts just to reduce the illiteracy rate in the north.This negative development as results of governments’ inabilities to provide essential services to all therefore necessitates projects engineered by non- governmental organisations like LIVE to monitor governments and reach out to the deprived and underprivileged in societies to ensure even access to all forms of modernization.

In recent times human rights violations, HIV/AIDS, TB, maternal and Infant mortality rates, malnutrition, scarcity of water and sanitation education and facilities, guinea worm infestation, food insecurity menace in rural communities etc has not only becomes a pandemic but a threat to socio-economic development of most developing countries especially Ghana. It is clear that governments alone cannot curb this menace hence the need for collaboration between other stakeholders like the NGO’S and other donor agencies.

LIVE was therefore founded on the 1st of July, 2003 to unearth the potentials of rural folks through advocacy on human rights and affordable healthcare delivery. All these problems require positive, proactive and timely interventions to manage before they could reach alarming proportions.

Livelihood Empowerment Center therefore seeks to empower and educate deprived rural communities especially women; mothers/widows, needy/orphaned children and the youth in agriculture to contribute in changing the trend of under development in the northern parts of Ghana in general and the deprived communities in particular.CHREP has well versatile and experienced staff to implement its programmes.

 As a matter of facts,LIVE employs advanced methodologies including Participatory Rural Appraisal tools (PRA), Human Rights Approach, Access Based Community Development and Focused Group Discussion. To assist in achieving its objectives the organisation adapts specific tools, guides and documents of other successful organisations in Ghana and elsewhere.

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