The Students Representative Council (SRC) of the University of Ghana has officially launched the Food Bank and “Ketewa Biara Nsua” initiatives as part of the Council’s 65th anniversary celebrations.
The initiatives are aimed at providing food and financial support to students in need respectively, while also celebrating over six decades of student representation.
The launch was held on the 14th June, 2023 at the SRC Union building. The event was attended by various SRC executives, faculty members, and students from across the university community.
Speaking particularly on what the Ketewa Biara Nsua Scholarship entails, SRC Scholarship Committee Head, Eric Ababio revealed that there was a need for additional scholarship schemes.
He said the objective of the initiative is to provide additional assistance to needy students to prevent students from deferring.
“There is absolute need for additional scholarship as the existing SRC Yi Ri Boa scholarship scheme has not been enough and hence this addition. This scholarship, as the name suggests, ‘Ketewa Biara Nsua’, is to help students who need just a small amount to top up their money to successfully pay their school fees and continue their academic journey.”
At the launch, the SRC President, Martin Boakye Gyasi revealed that the funds given for the SRC Yi Ri Boa Scholarship scheme was not adequate enough to support students who apply.
He added that a number of students who apply for the SRC Yi Ri Boa Scholarship scheme lose their support systems, making it difficult to thrive in their academics.
He said that the situation called for the need to have a policy students can benefit from to prevent a halt in their education due to financial constraints.
“We launched Yi Ri Boa and it was given about GHC 500,000 at the time. We realized that GHC 500,000 is doing barely enough. People apply with fees over GHC10,000 and what Yi Ri Boa can do is 1,500 so it became a big concern. We sat with the school management to look at the problem closely and then we realised the need to come up with a comprehensive welfare policy that is going to mitigate the challenges we face to a reasonable level….. For that matter we said can we put in a policy that will make sure that when a University of Ghana Students loses a parent [or a support system], your education should not be halted.”
Speaking on the food bank initiative, the General Secretary of the University of Ghana Student Representative Council, Emmanuella Yiadom Boakye also asserted that the food bank initiative aims at addressing the challenges of food poverty among needy students.
She explained that students can benefit from the initiative by filling a form, which will be distributed to the various halls and departments for easy access by students, indicating the food items they need.
“The initiative we launched today aims to address these challenges head on. This initiative is going to run on the basis of the halls and the departments and it is so because we don’t want to leave anyone out. So if you are a resident and you are genuinely in need, a form will be distributed to all JCR executives. You fill the form, the JCR president and executive endorses and your hall tutor endorses. After that, [the SRC] together with the Dean of students would give out to the students.”
Students in need from the university populace were encouraged to apply for the initiatives as necessary.
These initiatives are set to benefit the students heavily and improve their livelihood as students in the University.
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Story by | Henrietta Owusua | universnews.ug.edu.gh
