RESOURCE LINK FOUNDATION

 

P.O. Box KS 12154

Kumasi-Ash

resourcelinkgh@yahoo.com /chrisdapaah@gmail.com

 

 

 

annual report 2019/2020

 

 

 

Christopher Dapaah-Executive Director   (+233(0)244547417/+233(0)502253939/+233(0)505890405

 

Contents

• REPORT FROM MANAGEMENT
• BACKGROUND
• OBJECTIVES
• MISSION
• POLICIES
• REVIEW OF YEAR ACTIVITIES
• KEY ACHIEVEMENTS
• IMPACT
• FINANCIAL SUMMARY
• CONCLUSION
• RECOMMENDATION
• WAY FORWARD

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

REPORT FROM MANAGEMENT

 

 

BACKGROUND

Resource Link Foundation (RLF) is a Ghanaian Non-Governmental Organization founded in 1999 and registered in 2001. RLF has a philosophy of maximizing human potential for sustainable development in Ghana. Resource Link Foundation has been in existence for the past 18 years and happy to say that, achievements at strengthening the capacity of people and other partner organisation as well as advocating to promote sustainable development through Education, governance, health, climate change and social accountability. RLF has adopted a cross-sectoral approach to poverty reduction, human resource development, gender equity and sustainable  development working in various sectors and with different actors. RLF believes in the power of collective action and therefore has worked with a number of development partner.

It is legally registered under 1963(ACT 179) limited by Guarantee, Charity No. G7222, as development, non-profit, Non-governmental organisation with Social Welfare no DSW/2174, Wango Membership No. UN1741170, ICSW, civics member and other Local networks.

 

RLF HAS  A BOARD OF TRUSTEES, which is the governing body,  and a management Team headed by the  Coordinating  Director that sees to the day-to day business of RLF and programmes and support units are headed by Programmes Managers.

RLF currently has a staff strength of 5 qualified and experienced professionals with varied backgrounds, who form a  work disciplinary Team. In addition, RLF maintains a directory of very experienced professionals as resource persons on whom it falls to assist in the implementation of projects  should the need arise. This crop of professionals has varied backgrounds including   university lectures, and technocrats.

 

OBJECTIVES

• To ensure community strengthening.
• To ensure effective participation of the citizens in the Meduim Term Development Plan preparation and budgeting.
• To enhance my knowledge through workshops.
• To help parents to understand what immunization is.

 

 

 

MISSION

Resource Link Foundation (RLF) exist to serve the marginalized and deprived communities through Advocacy, capacity building and resource mobilization in contributing to improving standard of living of Ghanaians in diverse ways.

 

Vision 

To ensure that the lives of the deprived and marginalised can be transformed and developed.

 

WORK EXPERIENCES WITH OTHER DEVELOPMENT  PARTNERS–

Worked with GIZ  in local government and Decentralization since 2004.  PPAG and Ghana AIDS Commission on Sexual Reproductive and Hiv/Aids 2003 t0 2015,  SNV-Ghana on Social Accountability(Ghana school Feeding Programme and social public expenditure finanacial Accountability-SPEFA)  as Local Capacity builder since 2009 to 2015, Centre for the Development of People (CDP) on environment issues, LOGNet and Send Foundation- Ghana on Local Government 2009 to 2015, Send Ghana Aids effective forum,Resource Link Foundation – Netherlands 2008 to 2015 Centre for Democrating development.(CDD) and Health Coalition and other national NGOs or platforms / networks on  support services, Resource Link Foundation-Netherlands on 10^th Anniversary 2018, Resource Link Foundation and Ashanti Regional Directorate on 2^nd Year in Life (2YL) 2019, Resource Link Foundation and Centre for Democratic Development Ghana (CDD) on I AM AWARE and OSIWA 2019-2020.

 

 

YEAR OF REVIEW 2018

10^TH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION AND READING FESTIVAL AT THE BANDA DISTRICTS

Resource Link Foundation- Netherland 10^th anniversary program and 1^st Reading Festival at the Banda Districts on 10^th May, 2018 at the Banda Cultural Centre. The gathering was to climax a week long activity to promote reading among children in the Banda District and Wenchi Municipality. The activity was spearheaded by the resource Link foundation in collaboration with the Ghana Education Service Banda and the District Assembly.

Hon Ahmed Ibrahim Member of Parliament Banda District gave a remark saying because of the initiative by the resource Link Foundation for always doing his best to solicit for help to improve the quality of education and sanitization issues of the District. He also said the initiative he has carried out through his resource link foundation e.g. by getting the Methodist, Banda and other schools good pipe borne water and not waiting on the MP, the government and the district assembly to do that because they are mandated to do so but going through the stress to get support from his Netherlands partners shows how committed he is to helping his District.

The MP said because of the worthy cause from the MPs common fund they are going to help with an amount of Ten Thousand Ghana Cedis (GHC10, 000, 00) to help the cause they have started.  He again pleaded with him to make what he has started a yearly affair because the MP, Ghana Education Service and District Assembly needs people like him and Resource Link Foundation to support and pledged to support him anytime he calls on him.

A representative from the District Assembly read the speech on behalf of the District Chief executive saying knowledge is an important and essential to the growth and wellbeing of children and Education is the foundation and pillar of society. He therefore pleaded with the all parents to take advantage of the initiative to enrol their children to improve their socio-economic wellbeing. He ended by saying the project has made great impact in all the beneficiary schools and again pleaded to the Netherland partners to also consider extending their support to other areas such as organizing refresher courses for teachers and exchange programs for the school children to offer them the opportunity to visit the Netherlands and interact with other students that would yield positive outcomes for them.

Country Director, Christopher Dapaah (Resource Link Foundation) announce that the Banda district ranked 16 out of 216 districts on the district league table which is a tool used by CDD Ghana to rank all districts in order of performance in the areas of education, sanitation and water, security, etc. he said it wouldn’t have happened without leadership and applauded all stakeholders who joined forces to make it possible. He also stated that it is being observed as the first reading festival in the Banda District to ignite the reading passion and talent in children in the district to read and gain knowledge. He also quoted the reading 2013 GES assessment report  which showed that ‘’50.7% of pupils could not read a single word of a storybook only 1.8% could read fluently meaning pupils/students are not able to get the meaning of their examination questions before they write due to the fact that they cannot read or write. He said this happens as a result of schools lacking libraries and ICT facilities. And that it is impossible for children to continue with their education due to their reading inabilities and that everybody has a role to play in making this a reality.

He mentioned that by the support of all they were able to commission two( 2) boreholes at Mawu and Ferdia, they are also giving out hundred desks, 12,000 exercise books, 7200 my first copy books and some local calendars. Bibleonef also donated 3135 books to support the program and the organization is partnering with all the beneficiary schools to support them with books.

He showed appreciation to Wilde Gizen and Bibileonef for the immense support they have being giving to the Resource Link Foundation over the past years, Vodafone Ghana, the District Assembly, GTV, Royal FM, Flamingo publications and all for the support provided for making the program a successful one

 

 

 

Review of YEAR 2019

Calendar of Event

• Ghana Integrity Initiative
• Stakeholder Consultations On Draft National Monitoring And Evaluation Policy Ghana Monitoring and Evaluation
• Adolescent Reproductive Health
• End Child Marriage Network
• GIZ
• CBO inception meeting
• Consent Ghana CSOs
• Goal 6 platform meeting
• Middle Belt Fora to Collate Citizens Views To Influence Sector Budgets
• Local Governance And Implementation of the National Population Framework

 

• Regional Women’s Forum
• Justice For Children: Bridging The Gap Between Legislation And Practice Project
• SDGs public Awareness meeting
• AGM
• Alliance for Reproductive Health Rights

Projects

• Second year in Life.

A project to educate the citizens especially the women on the importance of Immunisation. the goal to protect every child against six specific vaccine- preventable diseases such as diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, measles, poliomyelitis and tuberculosis. Initially these vaccines were given in the first year of life then WHO include vaccines against hepatitis B, Hemophilic influenza b, pneumococcal disease, rotavirus, rubella and human Papillomavirus. Project in collaboration with Resource Link Foundation is supporting Ashanti Regional Health Directorate and Kumasi Metro Health Directorate to perform training.

Meeting with the community leaders (chiefs, queen mothers and elders), the church, mosque, market women, kayayies and other stakeholders to educate them on the importance of immunisation.

 

• IAA project

To  ensure development gaps in key service delivery areas are incorporated into the Medium Term Development Plans of the Assemblies and ultimately to improve overall service delivery ad to ensure demand side accountability, the Ghana Center for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana) in partnership with Resource Link Foundation undertook various activities to ensure citizens participation in the preparation of the Medium Term Development Plans of three Assemblies namely Afigya Kwabre in the Ashanti region, Dormaa East and Sene East Districts in the Brong Ahafo region, “I Am Aware” (IAA) supported by William and Flora Hewlett Foundation in USA which seeks to empower citizens with information  on six key service delivery areas namely Health, Education, Water, Sanitation, Security and Agriculture to use as evidence to  demand for  improvement  and accountability in public service delivery.

 

• Social Audit at KMA :
• Social Audit at Mankranso (CDD); process which the people final beneficiaries of any program /project are empowered to audit such programs /project. 99 total number of project in 2018 with a budget of 7329.451 which 92 was implemented, 81 implemented and completed, 7 not completed and 4 ongoing. There was a town hall meeting organized by CDD in collaboration with the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development in partnership with the Ahafo Ano South West District Assembly (Barniekrom, Kunsu, Dotiem and Afreseni Camp) on the 3^rd week of June to inspect and ensure the good condition of facilities being provided, continues and effective monitoring and sustainability and to promoting participatory local governance. There was some concerns raised by the citizens\
• Poor condition of furniture.
• Absence of a store room for the facility.
• No staff accommodation with inadequate staff around.
• Inadequate medical supplies.

 

 

 

Review of YEAR 2020

Since COVID -19 was declared as a Public Health Emergency of International Concern by World Health Organization (WHO), there was not much activities 2020 but many research projects are being conducted to understand the different perspectives and dimensions the virus has affected people. Resource Link Foundation (Civil Society Organization) a facilitating partner of CDD Ghana “I am aware project” continued to engage the Afigya Kwabre South District Assembly and had some interactions on the impacts of Covid-19 in the district.

At the data clarification and verification sessions with sectors units in the Afigya Kwabre South District Assembly, and the District Response Team comprising key stakeholders and the sector heads in the Assembly expressed the concerns on the impact the COVID 19 in the District.

Project implemented

Health

Analysing the Health data to enhance further discussion for responsive performing to curb COVID -19 challenges, the Director of Health, Mrs.Christiana Kontoh emphasized that Health system strengthening is critical to ensure that, logistics, capacity and all the needed Human resources for the District are given the due consideration

On preparedness for curbing the COVID19, The Health Director stated that a designated room known as ‘a holding room’ has been created at Aduman Senior High School to serve as temporal place to accommodate students who may show signs of the pandemics  whiles in school and three (3) trained nurses have been sent to that facility. This was also confirmed by the Assistant Educational Director. Mrs. Christiana Kontoh again added that there are about 23 contact tracers who are helping other health professionals in controlling the spread of the virus. As at 23^rd July 2020, the numbers of active Covid-19 cases were 131.

The district health director mentioned that there are about 27 health centers with 7 of them being government health facilities and the rest being private. She mention asserted that, together with other health professionals at the directorate they are doing their possible best in monitoring all health facilities in the district to ensure adherence and conformity to all safety protocols. She added that, they embark on regular visits to these facilities as a way of monitoring what transpires in there and keep educating them on new developments about the virus to increase their awareness.  Mrs. Christiana Kontoh commended the government for its support in the fight against the virus acknowledging receipt of PPEs and other logistics.

However she also mentioned these logistics are not sufficient enough so she made an appeal to the government and well-wishers especially CSOs and the private sector to support with the needed infrastructures and other logistics. The marginalized and vulnerable groups’ issues were seen as most critical since they are already in the poverty threshold need and all it takes to solving the COVID 19 challenges. IAA team was appended for the good work to reshaping the development inventions in the new normal world.

There was also need to monitor projects on health in Afigya Kwabre Municipality. Atimatim Health centre which was also a common fund project. The facility is in the medium Term Plan supposed to be three (3) storey building but current a fund of the base floor was released which consist of the OPD wards, maternity room, consulting room, laboratory, theatre and few other rooms for patients. The project was about 20% completed.

Adubemsu project was a health Centre project built in the Adubemsu community from the common fund. Its 100% completed but not commissioned. It’s a health centre with a laboratory, consulting room, maternity room and patient’s room. The health Centre is ready to function but no nurses or doctor to work, access to water and stealing of equipment but the people in the community is also a challenge.

   HEALTH CENTRE AT ATIMATIM COMMUNITY                       HEALTH CENTRE AT ADUBEMSU                          

   .

 

EDUCATION

it is seen that, Education is one of the powerful tools available to prevent and respond to the pandemic. Interviewing the Assistant Educational Director at the updates meetings to affirm the Administrative data from their sector, he mentioned that there is an existing district covid-19 team in which the Educational Director is a member. He mentioned that the team meets and relay the information shared to sub heads for action. He again mentioned that before schools were reopened there was training for all JHS and SHS heads by the District Assembly through the Health Directorate concerning the measures taken against COVID-19, and there is also an ongoing workshop for Directors/ Directorates at Kumasi Anglican School (KASS) for all districts in the region. Mr. Ebenezer Boakye mentioned that the Government as at 23^rd July 2020 had provided the directorate with 16721 nose masks, 4547 sanitizers, 290 veronica buckets, 600 liquid soap, 296 tissues and 247 thermometer guns to be given to schools in the district. However, he mentioned that some of this logistics are daily or periodical consumables and appealed to the Government and concerned Civil society organizations and individuals to ensure constant supply to meet the demands of raising Pandemic cases in the District.

According to him, The District has 54 public JHS, 50 private JHS, 2 public SHS and 2 private SHS. Mr. Ebenezer again mentioned that there has been constant monitoring and supervision in all the schools in the district to ensure that are protocols are observed.

Mr. Boakye concluded by commending the government for the good work, and also appealed for more incentives and recognition as frontline workers since they have direct contact with students.

He lamented on the shortage of funds as their major challenge in their daily routine work in the fight against Covid-19, he called on NGOs and philanthropists to offer a helping hand to the government to ensure efficient and effective delivery of service.

The district had ongoing projects on education at Aduman; project was 20 toilet facilities and changing room for students in Aduman Secondary School. The project was a common fund project from 2019. As at 25^th August 2020, the project was 50% complete. The contractor stopped and resumed work immediately the money was released and assured in the next month the project will be completed such all materials needed are provided. The foreman went further saying the students are making their work difficult by defecating at the site anytime they return to work which makes their work difficult and Apagya , the last community visited. A KG block with a playing ground about 80% completed and a borehole. The site was visited by the Apagya Assemblyman, District assembly reps, Resource Link Foundation reps and a SAC member.

BOREHOLE AND A KG BLOCK WITH                TOILET FACILTY AND A CHANGING ROOM INSIDE ADUMAN PLAYGROUND AT APAGYA                                       SECONDARY SCHOOl

 

 

 

 

 

GOVERNANCE

• Promoting social Accountability through citizens participation in Local Governance in Ghana.

A town hall meeting held at Mpasaso No. 1 and No.2 at Mankranso in the Ashanti region. Activities that took place were presentation on budget and finances of the district, mid-year progress reports for 2020 and education on COVID-19. There were some concerns raised by the citizens; Total number of citizens presents were 112,  49 females, 54 males  and 4 people with disabilities(PWDs).At the end of the meeting,

• Tax collectors who are few so they not able to visit all the districts but they have employed some in addition so in due time they will be coming around.
• Male and female sleeping in the same ward.
• No fire station in the district.

 

• ZONAL CITIZENS MOBILISATION ON TAX JUSTICE ISSUES IN THE AMIDST THE COVID 19 CRISIS

As a way of promoting Tax education and enhanced knowledge in local resource mobilization for development, the Tax Justice Coalition-Ghana invited CSOs, media, rep from K.M.A and GRA to a discussion forum. The zonal head welcomed and thanked all for making time to come for the forum. He stated in his statements that exactly six(6) months ago, when Ghana joined the world to fight the pandemic, the Tax Justice Coalition is continuously embarking on its regional/ zonal membership mobilization forum to discuss how COVID 19 crisis has affected local tax issues and further engagement on recent campaign positions at the national level through expansion and consolidation of regional tax justice membership base- increasing Tax policy awareness and the capacity of membership as well as Enhancing Knowledge on tax issues at the national, regional and local levels. Therefore, he calls on various government machineries, parties’ National developmental policies to ensure, fair, equitable and innovative progressive tax systems are promoted in Ghana. Mr Micheal Acheampong concluded by saying participants should use various platforms to create the awareness of Tax collections to let businesses move smoothly

• Despite the challenges the novel corona virus brought all over the world affecting almost all organizations, Resource Link Foundation was able to organize itself and pursue its core mandate of mobilizing resources for development in deprived communities. In the course of the year, RLF received funding to undertake certain projects in the Bono and Ahafo regions and also completed some projects it has started already in the previous years. These projects were carried out in the Banda, Wenchi and Goaso Districts.

In the beginning of the year ending 2020, the second phase of the Mundo Coporante project which started in 2019 was completed by the Resource Link Foundation team in the Banda District. The project trained about 100 women from about 25 selected communities from the Banda District in bee keeping. The project sought to provide these women with skills and training on how to keep bees in bee hives and harvest honey as a source of income generating activity to help them financially to cater for their female children. The ultimate goal of the project was to assist these women financially in keeping their female children in schools rather than getting them married over financial difficulties. The capacities of these women were built and the necessary skills and knowledge needed were taught throughout the project period. At the end of the project, each participant was given bee hives to manage on her own and support their female children with the proceedings from the harvest of the honey from the hives.

Later on in the year when Covid-19 spread all over the world and for that matter was declared as a global pandemic, Resource Link Foundation received funding to help deprived communities fight the spread of the virus while protecting the vulnerable in those communities. The project recruited volunteers from selected communities who were trained on the use of PPEs and the various protection measures against the spread of the virus. The volunteers who were trained and RLF staff together with health professionals also embarked on community sensitization and education programs at public places, community radio stations and household campaigns. PPEs were distributed to community members and veronica buckets, tissues and liquid soaps were provided at market places to enable the public to frequently wash their hands. IE&C materials about the virus was developed and distributed in all communities in the two districts. Again, bill boards containing information about the virus and its preventive measures were erected at all vantage points in the two districts. This project was carried out in the Wenchi and Banda Districts This initiative according to the health directors in the two districts helped in getting the people well informed about the virus and eventually reducing the infection rate in the districts.

Furthermore, RLF also received funding from UNICEF to engage beneficiaries of the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) and the National Health Insurance Scheme on their level of awareness and participation in decision making on policies regarding these programs. In all, 4 communities and over 120 beneficiaries were engaged during the project implementation. The district offices for the two social protection programs were also engaged during the project implementation. The project was in two-folds. There was an initial pilot exercise to test the tools developed for the project and the actual exercise which took place after the pilot exercise. There were inception meetings at the community and district levels before community engagements were made and an interface meeting after the implementation of the project where heads of departments and members of selected communities were all brought together to ensure accurate reportage of information ascertained from the project implementation. This project was carried out in the Wenchi Municipal Assembly.

In October 2020, the Leap Management Secretariat (LMS) also engaged RLF through the Social Protection Platform to undertake a pilot program in the Goaso Municipal Assembly in the Ahafo Region dubbed “Beneficiary Charter of Rights and Responsibilities”. The program sought to engage beneficiaries of the LEAP program in the district and sensitize them about their rights and responsibilities as LEAP beneficiaries and additional information that has been added to the program. Two communities were selected for the pilot program and all beneficiaries as well as community members were engaged during the exercise. RLF collaborated with the Municipal Assembly’s administration, the district Leap office, Information Service Department and the National Commission on Civic Education during this exercise.

 

 

• Monitoring of Service Delivery

The monitoring forms part of activities under STAR –Ghana funded project dubbed “creating Anti-Corruption Voices within the implementation of the SDGs. The overall goal of the intervention is to reduce Corruption in the implementation of SDGs 3 and 4 (ie. Sustaining Development Goals on Health and Education)

 

With these projects implemented within the year, Resource Link Foundation has built excellent core competencies with demonstrable capacity especially in Social Accountability, Social Audit and the Coalition of NGOs in health as well as LOGNet to facilitate any participatory approach to community based development.

Key Achievement/Aims

• Education (ICT and Libraries use). Health (TB, HIV/AIDS and sexual Reproduction)
• Environmental /Agriculture.
• Women and children welfare

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

FINANCIAL REPORT

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CONCLUSION

This report therefore covers efforts made to address the challenges that deprive citizens’ participation and inclusiveness in the resource mobilization, allocation and effective and efficient utilization for quality service delivery for total development of the districts. It also covers Basic Education Improvement Programme (BEIP) activities implemented to raise the standards of education in our working districts.

RECOMMENDATION

• Education through the establishment of community libraries and information technology units
• Promote Health including preventing TB,HIV/AIDS
• Food security and nutrition programmes
• Good governance and democracy as well as Human Rights

Environmental sustainability through forest conservation, livelihoods and afforestation programmes

WAY FORWARD

• stakeholders will collaborate with Civil Societies working in Ghana to effectively address development issues to move the country forward in meeting the goals of the SDGs.