A non-governmental organisation, Nation Builders, has launched a project dubbed " Help a Child Read " at the Archbishop Amissah Memorial School at Duakor, a fishing community near the University. 

The project is aimed at inculcating the culture of reading into school children to improve learning outcomes. As part of the launch, Nation Builders donated assorted reading books to the school.  Nation Builders, established by some undergraduate and M.Phil students of the University of Cape Coast, is also expected to expand the project across schools in the Central region.

 The Pro- Vice-Chancellor, Prof. George K. T. Oduro, who launched the project, commended the Nation Builders for the unique initiative and called on  stakeholders to give support to the project to achieve its aim. Touching on the philosophy underlying  Nation Builder's activities, he said, " there is one thing I find and that is "Changing the Mindset of Ghanaians".

 According to him, Ghanaians had developed a mindset of self-centeredness, sectionalism, tribalism and  partisanship, and asked Ghanaians to do away with such negative tendencies. Rather, he called  on Ghanaians to have a positive mindset towards the nation by exuding the values of  patriotism,selflessness,voluteerism and nationalism.

 Prof. Oduro noted that the spirit of volunteerism among Ghanaians, especially the youth, was gradually dying. He advised that" If the school system can help reactivate this spirit of volunteerism among our younger ones then reading becomes a crucial thing we need to invest in." “Without reading, children would find it extremely difficult to read and understand the issues the media project on television”, he emphasized.

Prof. Oduro stressed that reading was critical to national development irrespective of the job or profession. He said children must be encouraged to read books to enable them to build  themselves morally, spiritually, physically,socially and mentally towards nation building.


The Pro- Vice-Chancellor said:” Children should read books that would help them develop spirit of cohesion, co-existence and volunteerism. He advised parents to discourage their children from indulging in acts that were inimical to the development of the nation, especially "things that are divisive by nature".

 The patron of Nation Builders, Mr. Stephen Doh fia,  in a remark, said reading was one of the habits of serious students, hence the huge investment by education stakeholders. He called on the public to support the reading agenda, noting that " education experts have said that, there is a strong correlation between reading and academic performance”. He advised parents, teachers and other stakeholders in education " to encourage and guide children to read, doing this will help our country to grow and develop."

 The Headmaster of the School, Mr. Justin Ekor, thanked  Nation Builders for the gesture. He assured the leadership of Nation Builders that the books would be put to good use to enable the pupils to read wide. He appealed to benevolent individuals and organizations to come to the aid of the school to put up an Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Center.

Hardworking pupils of the school were awarded for their academic performance. The pupils also entertained the audience with poetry recitals.