The Rebecca Foundation has begun the construction of a library at Kwahu Bepong in the Kwahu South District of the Eastern Region for school children in the area as part of its “Learning to Read Reading to Learn initiative.”

The initiative seeks to inculcate the habit of reading among school children by providing them with the right ambience, and adequate, interesting and relevant reading materials to enrich their knowledge.

The Rebecca Foundation has already constructed eight libraries with two more under construction under the same initiative.

However, the Kwahu Bepong Library project falls within a new collaborative endeavour between the Rebecca Foundation and the Abdul Samad Rabiu Africa (ASR Africa) initiative, which also aims at constructing another eight sets of library facilities to various communities across the country, bringing the total number of Libraries being constructed by the Foundation, to eighteen.

ASR Africa is an initiative of Nigerian industrialist and philanthropist, Abdul Samad Rabiu, to give back to the African continent through the promotion of sustainable healthcare, education and social development.

It would be recalled that in June 2021, the Rebecca Foundation signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the ASR Africa, for a grant of $500,000 to support the Foundation’s education initiatives.

The grant was offered by ASR Africa following what it described as the “Rebecca Foundation’s commitment to the welfare of women and children in the country and its adherence to good corporate governance and practices which have enabled the foundation to deliver infrastructure and services in the areas of education, health and women’s economic empowerment.”

Cutting the sod for the Kwahu Bepong facility on behalf of Mrs Rebecca Akufo-Addo, Mrs Akosua Newman, Director of Operations at the Office of the First Lady, said since its inception in 2017, the Foundation had been undertaking several programmes and infrastructural projects under its Learning to Read Reading to Learn initiative, to support the Government to achieve the United Nation’s (UN) Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4).

SDG 4 aims to “Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all”.

She said the First Lady believes strongly that one sure way to improve access to quality education among children to enable them to discover their full potential and prepare them for the global competitive market, was to empower them with knowledge, which could largely be acquired by reading broadly.

To this end, she said the Foundation had also constructed primary schools and donated books to several school libraries across the country, as well as run a children’s reading programme on national television: “Learning to Read Reading to Learn”; all aimed at encouraging reading among children as an avenue to knowledge acquisition.

Mrs Newman extended the Foundation’s profound gratitude to the ASR Africa initiative for its support in putting up the library facility.

She urged politicians, traditional leaders and elders in the area to encourage their wards to patronise the library to acquire knowledge when completed.

She also thanked the District Chief Executive (DCE) for Kwahu South, Mr Emmanuel Atta Ofori, and Mr Davis Ansah Opoku Member of Parliament for Mpraeso, for their assistance in ensuring speedy take-off of the project.

Dignitaries that graced the sod-cutting ceremony included the DCE, and Mr Hayford Siaw, Director of the Ghana Library Authority as well as representatives of ASR Africa, some traditional leaders and heads and students of beneficiary schools.