We Support Physically Challenged Adults and Children in Ghana
Thanks to the generosity of our supporters, we’ve recycled thousands of pieces of special equipment and sent them to people for whom they are life-changing.
…along with thousands of other items including hearing aids, hearing aid batteries, braille machines, sewing machines and tools.
We want to do more, including setting up production facilities to manufacture special equipment in Ghana.
Why We Do What We Do
An estimated 3% of Ghana’s population of more than 30 million people have serious physical challenges – that’s nearly 1 million people. Many people with physical challenges in Ghana have no special equipment, and people living in the most financially impoverished communities in Ghana face extensive additional challenges ranging from inadequate accommodation to limited access to clean water. With the help of our supporters, we have helped thousands of people to have greater opportunities to live, work, and enjoy their lives. Please help us to do more.
We’re committed to:
Helping people get the special equipment they need
We recycle special equipment and ship it to Ghana where we create employment for people repairing the equipment then give it to people who need it either directly or in partnership with local hospitals and other groups for no charge.
Changing attitudes towards people with physical challenges
Through our schools outreach programme, our support for sportsmen and women with physical challenges and our annual ‘Walk of Hope’, we help to create positive attitudes to people with physical challenges.
Creating employment opportunities
We’ve helped hundreds of people with physical challenges to gain employment, and we want to do more. With the support of our donors, we want to set up batch production facilities to make canes for blind people and other special equipment in Ghana.
Special Equipment
We send shipping containers to Ghana full of special equipment for people with physical challenges, ensuring that items that might become scrap metal are instead recycled. We’ve helped thousands of people to get the special equipment that that they need, from crutches for amputees to wheelchairs for disabled people. We continue to do this, and we want to do much more. We hope to set up manufacturing facilities in Ghana to create more jobs for people in Ghana.
Walk of Hope
Our annual ‘Walk of Hope’ is a 12 mile walk that has helped to challenge perceptions and raise awareness of people with physical challenges in Ghana. It has been an annual event since 2013 and we have even been able to help people to gain employment as a result of the Walk of Hope via the support and participation of a number of high profile companies.
Sports
Sports – and in particular football – has a significant place in Ghanaian culture, and we’ve been very actively involved in promoting sports for people with physical challenges from helping to set up an amputee football league in Ghana that now has eight teams and regular matches (and helping players to get crutches and football kit) to helping the first Ghanaian athlete to compete in the Paralympics. We plan to do a lot more!
Job Creation
We aim to help people with physical challenges to find worthwhile employment, and we pursue that goal both by liasing with companies in Ghana and by helping people to establish their own businesses. Over the last decade we have frequently included sewing machines among the items that we have sent to Ghana to help people set up businesses as tailors.
Education
We’ve supported Ghanaian students at all levels, from primary school students to helping people graduate from college. In partnership with UK charity School in a Bag, we’ve supplied writing materials to hundreds of impoverished children for whom these items would be a significant cost.
The DESO Centre, Ghana
We’re expanding our existing base in Ghana by creating a new purpose-built drop-in centre for disabled people, which will be the first of its kind in the area. The completed building will make a critical difference to the support that we are able offer to people with physical challenges in Ghana.