Sympathy International (NGO)- Help Eradicate Affliction

Establishment:- Sympathy International is a Ghanaian owned and managed Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) registered with the Registrar Generals Department and the Department of Social Welfare. It was established in December 2001. MISSION:- Moved by the growing human sufferings through disease, poverty, deprivation and other social menace engulfing Africa with particular reference to Ghana. Sympathy International is hereby established as a corporate body to create the enabling environment to arrest these afflictions. VISION:- It is the vision of Sympathy International that the grimace of miseries from disease, deprivation or poverty would one day give way to a dignified smile of hope in ones life on earth if we act in unison.

OBJECTIVES:- • Helping the poor and the needy through developmental projects. • Promoting the civil and social rights of women and children. • Promoting vocational skill training and job creation. • Training the youth to become responsible and achievement oriented personalities for future leadership of the nation • Helping to eradicate sexual promiscuity, teenage pregnancy and school drop out. • Helping to create a sustained awareness of the HIV/AIDS pandemic.

COLLABORATIONS In order to achieve a more holistic impart on the lives of people living in its project areas, Sympathy International has no barriers to its operation and work in collaboration. With successful partnership formed with major stakeholders like the Ghana AIDS Commission, District Assemblies, both Christians and non-Christian Associations, Women Entrepreneurial and Business Associations, the Gratis Foundation, Educational Institutions and some key Government Ministries as well as Development Partners like ProGhana, who work on getting interns and volunteers to support local N.G.O’S.

ACHIEVEMENTS The achievement of Sympathy International has been tremendous within its 6 years in existence. In 2001, with internally generated resources and little support from a Rural Bank, Sympathy International established the cassava processing centre which has dramatically transform the Gari making activity of the women group at Attabadze Junction. • HIV/AIDS Peer Educators running project In collaboration with the Ghana Aids Commission, Sympathy International has trained a total number of 150 peer educators made up 71 females and 79 males. The appreciable end result of this initiative is a considerable degree of awareness and education being provided on HIV/AIDS including mode of transmission, symptoms, and prevention methods. The organization has also increased knowledge about the causes and management of stigmatization, and has also intensified counseling drive to urge people to have Volunteering Counseling and testing. The organization has also undertaken house to house campaigns, one-on-one discussion on HIV/AIDS/STDs/STIs, film shows on HIV/AIDS from community to community, symposia, dramas and sketches all to create awareness to the understanding of the ordinary Ghanaian. • Supporting Youth in Education Sympathy International also believes that when education is encouraged among children especially at early ages, society grows in knowledge and wisdom to the benefit of the nation. And thus, strongly advocates, assists and supports children who are uneducated and school drop-outs to acquire education. Sympathy International has adopted the HEAVENS LIGHT PREPATORY SCHOOL at Attabadze Junction. With donations such as school desk worth GHc 450.00, 280 pieces of blocks worth GHc 420.00 and 35 aluminum roofing sheets also worth GHc 420.00, the organization has helped increase and sustain enrollment in the school.

• ICT Education Sympathy International also created a computer lab, with the support of students and Sociology faculty of Appalachian State University, North Carolina, to provide children in the Ola community in the Cape Coast area with ICT education. • Job Creation in Women Groups Sympathy International, to help alleviate poverty among women, has through collaborations created income-generating activities and skill training, which assists the women to support their family budget. This also traverses into supporting their children’s education, thereby reducing the incidence of high school-dropout rates. Women empowerment through job creation and the ultimate poverty alleviation will help in no small measure to reduce their dependency on men, as their sole benefactor, and thereby bringing down sexual promiscuity and leading to the reduction of the HIV/AIDS pandemic. • Integrated Women Training and Income Generating Complex, Amosima In furtherance of intervention schemes to help women out of poverty, Sympathy International has acquired a one and half acres of land on lease hold at Amosima near Yamoransa for the implementation of an Integrated Income Generating Project Center. A sod cutting ceremony has been held on May 23rd, 2007 at a grand durbar of chiefs of Amosima, to commence the project. In attendance were some seventeen (17) University Students, Lecturers and Administrators of the Appalachian State University of the United States of America, including Professor Beth Davision, Mary Beth McKee and Berta Carvel, who all pledged their unflinching support for the women development project. The integrated Project comprises of sewing, batik tie and dying, citrus processing, soap and pomade making, beads and accessory making departments. When completed, over 110 women would be employed in the short term, and a further seventy (70) women in farming have their produce patronized as raw material for both the complex and public market. Amosima is barely 6 kilometers from our head office at Ola Estate Cape Coast