APOWA ORPHNAGE ENDURES REGULAR RAIDS (PAGE 29)

Story: Moses Dotsey Aklorbortu, Sekondi

THIEVES have turned their attention to Orphan Cry Ghana, an orphanage at Apowa in the Western Region, to rob them whenever they receive donations.
They break into the storeroom of the orphanage to steal whatever has been donated for the upkeep of the children, whose ages range from two-months to 18 years.
According to the Mother of the home, Rev. Mrs Mary Armah Young, when kind-hearted members of the public and organisations make donations to them, in the night thieves break into their store and make away with the items, mostly rice, toiletries and sometimes cash.
She said this when the Association of Seventh Day Pentecostal made a donation of food and cash to the home as part of their service to mankind.
“To be honest with you, we have had support from other local and international organisations, especially from the US, but thieves come and make away with the items meant for the children,” she said.
Asked what accounted for that, she said, “Since the people who come here are well dressed and drive in good vehicles, the thieves think they have brought us the whole world and then they also come and take their share,” she said.
"We take these children, we feed them, bathe them, wash their clothes and give them whatever we can provide for them and treat them as our own children. Therefore, it is sad that the little they have would be taken away from them".
Rev. Mrs Young said it would interest the public to know that sometimes the thieves come with vehicles because the items they normally took away from them were in substantial quantities. “But what I ask myself is, has it come to that? Should children whose survival depends on society have their store ransacked by thieves? That is unheard of but we will pray for them,” she said.
She, therefore, appealed to public-spirited people to help construct a wall round the compound to protect the children and the property of the orphanage.
The leader of the Seventh-Day Pentecostal, Elder Ebenezer Yeboah Bekoe, said the best form of worship was to support the vulnerable in society and that they would do everything possible to ensure that life is made a little bearable for the venerable in society.