Latex Foam Company provided funds for fitting of Artificial Limbs

Story: Mary Mensah
LATEX Foam Company Limited has in collaboration with the Ghana National Trust Fund (GNTF) provided funds for the fitting of artificial limbs to 20 amputees.
The programme forms part of the social responsibility programme of the company.
The beneficiaries who were drawn from all regions in the country are registered members of the Ghana Society for the Physically Challenged.
According to the Executive Secretary of the GNTF, Ms Joyce Frimpong, the fund had been providing assistance to a number of institutions, some of which included the Leprosy Relief Assistance, Ghana Society for the Socially Disadvantaged, Society for the Blind, Help Age Ghana, St John’s Ambulance Brigade and the Voluntary Workcamps Association.
She said the trust fund was established by the first President of Ghana, Dr Kwame Nkrumah, in 1958 to cater for the handicapped and the less privileged in the society.
Ms Frimpong said it was supposed to be the nation’s only community chest serving various voluntary organisations, the disabled and the orphans.
She said twice within a year some members from the mentioned institutions were selected for assistance in various areas but this year the fund was focusing on 20 amputees who were to be fitted with artificial limbs.
The first beneficiary group, numbering 10, including four women and the second batch would be fitted with limbs by the close of the year.
The executive secretary indicated that the current project was  being executed alongside a series of other programmes being undertaken by the Ghana National Trust Fund.
She asserted that the fund had been paying the medical bills of people, especially children in the various hospitals whose relatives could not afford the medical bills.
She said the fund recently came out with a scheme under which it offered training to persons with disabilities and provided them with equipment needed in the various vocations yearly on a regional basis. There have been instances where the fund donated either in cash or in kind to orphanages or individuals who appealed to it.
On sources of income for the GNTF, the executive secretary indicated that it did not receive any subvention from the central government hence it had to depend on public spirited individuals, organisations, corporate bodies and churches, among others, to fund its projects.