Local Group Raising Funds to Support Education and Healthcare Projects in Ghana
SACRAMENTO, Calif. - Changing Lives Together (CLT) - a volunteer-run organization raising money to drive sustainable relief efforts in rural Ghana - hosts its major charitable event on April 13 at New Life Community Church in Fair Oaks. To date, CLT has raised over $300,000 to support projects such as installing wells to provide clean water, building classrooms, a school kitchen for the Bomaa Boarding School cafeteria, equipping hospitals with much needed equipment, including the Fountain Care Hospital with its first ever isolette to start a neonatal intensive care unit, and upgrading operating rooms at the Sampa District hospital.
What: Changing Lives Together Gala
When: Friday, April 13, 2018, 6.30 to 9.30 p.m.
Where: New Life Community Church, 8101 Sunset Ave, Fair Oaks, CA 95628
Why: Raise funds to support healthcare, education, and sanitation projects in rural Ghana
How: Purchase tickets at: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/2018-clt-annual-gala-dinner-tickets-41512266306
In 2005, George and Jean Hanson set out to change lives in their home country of Ghana and established a Christian, charitable organization, Changing Lives Together. Their primary mission remains the same from day one: address the inadequate education, healthcare, and sanitation issues in rural Ghana. The Hanson’s not only grew up in Ghana, but George taught mathematics in a rural school where the most basic supplies like textbooks, pencils and paper were in short supply. Since their relocation to the United States, George and Jean have dedicated themselves to raising funds that would support specific, sustainable projects to ease some of the deplorable living conditions many rural Ghanaians face.
The 2018 Gala marks the 6th annual fundraising event. This year’s funds will support building classrooms and restrooms for 1st through 3rd graders at the Suma Ahenkro Preparatory School. Currently the school has no electricity, no clean water source, or restrooms and students meet in temporary structures that are best described as “dilapidated wooden shacks”; and teachers fear for the students safety, as they indicate, rainstorms will bring the structures down. When it rains, the students are sent home and they fall behind. Yet, they must pass the same competency exams, as those attending modern, and well equipped, urban schools.
About Changing Lives Together
Changing Lives Together is a 501-c-3 Christian non-profit organization bringing life-changing projects to rural Ghana. CLT is entirely volunteer-run and funds projects that improve healthcare, education, and sanitation, including providing clean drinking water to Ghana’s impoverished rural communities. Some of the projects funded to date include donating over 5,000 new eye glasses, providing baby incubators, phototherapy units, and other equipment for neonatal intensive care units at various hospitals to serve sick and premature babies, building classrooms in various village communities, a kitchen to support a school cafeteria where previous, food was prepared on a dirt floor, replacing contaminated water sources for many communities by drilling water wells to provide clean water, providing sponsorships for students whose parents can't afford to support them and various malaria prevention projects at boarding schools and hospitals, giving people a first line of defense against the fatal disease spread by mosquitoes.
A villager from the rural Jaman North District is examined by an optometrist at the Sampa District Hospital. Changing Lives Together provided eye glasses for this poor rural district. The typical family earns $1 to $2 per day to feed 6-8 people. Unemployment estimates for the district are 70-80 percent.
Esther Arthur, CLT Ghana operations manager, is surrounded by children in Suma village in Jaman District in Spring 2016. CLT supports health, education and clean water initiatives in Ghana.
Changing Lives Together works in rural Ghana to improve economic opportunities through education, clean water, and basic health care services. Maryland Chapter of Engineers Without Borders worked with CLT to develop a solar project to provide energy at the Suma Ahenkro High School.
Changing Lives Together works in rural Ghana to improve economic opportunities through education, clean water, and basic health care services. Maryland Chapter of Engineers Without Borders worked with CLT to develop a solar project to provide energy at the Suma Ahenkro High School.
Children a Suma township while Changing Lives Together and Engineers Without Boarders built a solar project for the school.
Children a Suma township while Changing Lives Together and Engineers Without Boarders built a solar project for the school.
Hospital infrastructure at hospitals in rural Ghana lack critical equipment such as that needed for premature or sick infants. Changing Lives Together raises funds to purchase needed equipment to provide basic care in these areas.
Hospital infrastructure at hospitals in rural Ghana lack critical equipment such as that needed for premature or sick infants. Changing Lives Together raises funds to purchase needed equipment to provide basic care in these areas.
Fountain Care Hospital previously had virtually no equipment to care for sick or premature infants at the hospital. Changing Lives Together raised money to purchase an isolette for the hospital which now has the equipment to save lives and serve their district in rural Ghana.
Fountain Care Hospital previously had virtually no equipment to care for sick or premature infants. Changing Lives Together raised money to purchase an isolette for the hospital which now has the equipment to save lives and serve their district in rural Ghana.
Changing Lives Together's current project is to build new classrooms for Suma Ahenkro Prep School which has no electricity, water or toilets. CLT will build new, safe structures that can withstand changing weather and reduce the number of days the school is closed.
At Booma School in rural Ghana, food was being prepared in an outdoor dirt-floored kitchen. The unsanitary conditions were making children sick. Changing Lives Together raised funds to build a new kitchen for the school which is now providing meals for the students.
Changing Lives Together's current project is to build new classrooms for Suma Ahenkro Prep School which has no electricity, water or toilets. CLT will build new, safe structures that can withstand changing weather and reduce the number of days the school is closed.
This is the new kitchen that was built at Booma School in rural Ghana, food was being prepared in an outdoor dirt-floored kitchen. The unsanitary conditions were making children sick. Changing Lives Together raised funds to build a new kitchen for the school which is now providing meals for the students.