Rev. Father Sebastian Zaato, Rev. Sr. Regina Ignatia Aflah with the returnees in Tamale
The Tamale Archdiocesan Development Office (TADO) of the Catholic Church in collaboration with Caritas Ghana, a Charity Organization of the Ghana Catholic Bishops’ Conference (GCBC), has supported migrants and refugees in Tamale, the Northern region.
About 20 beneficiaries of the support are returnees from countries such as Italy, Spain, Germany, Gabon, Libya.
The Catholic Church supported the returnees with bags of rice, cooking oil, can tomatoes, toiletries among other items.
The support is under the Support Services for Migrants And Refugees in Transit (SMART) for inclusive Development Project.
The project framework target 18,000 direct beneficiaries and over 145,000 indirect beneficiaries through different mediums to enable migrants, refugees and their families, and community shift their perspective of successes and failures related to migration.
The project has been implemented in nine out of Ghana’s 16 regions: Ahafo, Bono-East, Greater Accra, Northern, Upper East, Upper West, Volta, Western and Oti.
Rev. Sr. Regina Ignatia Aflah, Project Coordinator, Human Rights and Justice of Caritas Ghana, at a short ceremony said the support is designed to achieve an overall goal of providing responsive humanitarian assistance and reintegration support for returned migrants and refugees in Ghana and curtail the menace of irregular migration from Ghana into the West through Social and Behavioral Change Communication (SBCC) activities in the communities by 2025.
She hinted that through Support Services for Migrants And Refugees in Transit (SMART),Caritas Ghana will soon present an amount of GH¢20,000 to support the Archdiocese.
Rev. Sr. Aflah called for support and cooperation to enable the Archbishop through TADO to reach out to as many as possible to secure the future of the Archdiocese labour force which is under threat due to the menace of irregular migration.
TADO Project Coordinator, Rev. Father Sebastian Zaato, indicated that TADO will explore with Caritas Ghana on the possibility of implementing several other interventions under the project framework to help broaden the outreach of the project and build the resilience of local communities against the threat of irregular migration.
Mr. Abdallah Osman, a returnee who spoke on behalf of the beneficiaries narrated the ordeal they went through in their quest to seek greener pastures outside the country and urged his colleagues to start afresh to enable them realize their dreams back home.
“There’s still hope for us here in our own country and so I will urge you all especially we those who do not certificates to learn a skill and I promise you we can realize our dreams here in Ghana,” he said.
BY Eric Kombat, Tamale