Poverty worsens in Asasekorkor as parents struggle to buy school uniforms
Some parents in Ghana’s rural areas are finding it difficult to purchase school uniforms for their kids, forcing them to go to school in torn uniforms and worn-out shoes. This is due to the country’s growing rural poverty.
According to the Ghana Statistical Service’s (GSS) Quarterly Multidimensional Poverty Report 2022, 14.1 million Ghanaians, or 46% of the country’s total population, were still living in poverty on many dimensions as of the second quarter.
In Ghana, the disparity between urban and rural poverty is still growing.
Undoubtedly one of the rural towns suffering from extreme poverty is Asasekorkor, an agricultural community in the Okere District of the Eastern region.
The majority of the population, who are peasant farmers, is trying to survive the country’s difficult economic climate.
Some of the kids now go to school in torn uniforms and sandals because buying school uniforms and shoes for their kids has grown to be a burdensome task.
The situation, according to Sarfo Ofori Ankomah, headteacher of Asasekorkor D/A Basic School, is troubling.
“These people are peasant farmers and they make little from the work they do so they don’t have money .Many of them are unable to buy uniforms and shoes for their children so you see these children wearing torn uniforms and tattered shoes.It really affects their confidence in class because they become mocking stock by their peers.”
Teenage females in the neighbourhood suffer from poverty as a result of getting into the wrong hands while looking for necessities like sanitary pads.
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Teenage pregnancies have increased as a result of this.
When Kwame Nkrumah Botsio, Nana Ama Ahwoi of the renowned Ahwoi family, and Nana Yaa Appiah, who led the 1994 Year Group of Christ the King Old Students Association in Accra, gave school uniforms to the students in Asasekorkor community who were wearing tarrted uniforms and unprescribed dresses to help the parents, they were shocked by the level of deprivation and poverty in the area.
They pledged to raise more funds to assist these areas.
Debrah Bekoe Isaac, executive director of As I Grow (AIG), who organised the donation to the underprivileged community, pleaded with the affluent members of society to assist efforts to alleviate poverty in rural areas in order to lessen suffering.
Construction of the poor road, which becomes impassable anytime it rains, will help facilitate the transportation of food to market centres, enabling peasant farmers in the Asasekorkor community to earn a living.
Due to the inadequate road, a commercial motorbike is the only method of transportation for the hamlet.
Farmers are left with pitiful wages to live on after the riders charge them exorbitant rates to deliver their farm products to market centres.
They claim that even though the road was being built, it has been abandoned.
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