My name is Eric Coomans, I am 72 years old and since 2005 the co-founder and director of Child Support Ghana. On behalf of my co-director Rev. Daniel Seidu, our children, staff, Members of the Board in The Netherlands, our Foster families, our volunteers and all our faithful supporters in Ghana and abroad, we welcome you to our 10 year anniversary celebration. I am so proud that you are here!

A special welcome to Mrs. Caecila Wijgers, Deputy to the Ambassador in Ghana of the Royal Kingdom of The Netherlands in Accra. I am so proud that one of the highest representatives of my home country in Ghana has travelled all the way to Wa! Thank you! It is her first time in Wa and I really hope, it won’t be her last.

“ It always seems impossible, until it’s done!” is the one liner of the man that inspired me to do this work for the most vulnerable children in this Region. The late Nelson Mandela showed the world and me that if parents and Governments take up their responsibilities, they can make all the difference to the very needy in the society.

The Upper West Region is considered one of the poorest Regions of this country but poverty should never become an excuse for neglecting children. Poverty sometimes makes parents desperate and to survive, parents have to give young girls away for early marriage or send them to Kumasi to become Kaya Ye. Communities, chiefs, elders, opinion leaders, teachers, Religious Leaders and governmental institutions are not able to stop the migration of young girls to the bigger cities.

Ten years ago, my dear friend and co-director Reverend Daniel Seidu and I had a dream. A dream to see the lives of underprivileged girls turn around.

For some time we sold air and everybody looked at us in a way of “we believe, when we see!” And now, ten years later, you can see and believe!

Child Support focuses on the street girls; girls that live on the streets who have lost both parents or were abandoned by their parents and families. So all of the girls here at our compound have a sad and bad background. If they had a happy background, they would not be here!

We follow the motto that “if you educate a girl child, you educate the nation” and all our girls are attending school, some of them for the first time in their young lives, and they all take the opportunity to be educated very seriously.

A major concern is that when the girls reach the age of 18, they have to leave our project because, according to the Ghana constitution, they become adults. This is our biggest challenge at this very moment. Because children have to leave our project, whilst still at school, to give them back to their families means that they stop schooling, get married and give birth to children truncating the process of their training.

Together with the support from abroad, we are trying to rent a house where these girls, caught in that web, can stay and complete their education. My deepest wish is that Ghana also will take up its responsibility to educate these girls. Some of them are brilliant and they deserve a further education. Ghana can make the difference to them!

To celebrate our 10 years anniversary is a good thing, but at the same time a sad thing. My dream is that one day our partners at the Departments of Social Work, The Department of Children and DOVVSU will tell us that no more girls are knocking at their doors begging for help, because parents are now taking up their responsibilities, the Government is playing its role and Child Support will become a superfluous organization. This means Child Support is no longer needed!

I really hope that I will survive and experience this historic moment!

I want to make a strong appeal to all Governmental institutions; NGO’s CBO’s NOT to stop at talking and praying about child protection. It’s time to work and to protect children!! Walk the talks and prayers!

Open your eyes when you are at the market and you see so many young girls, selling all kind of things, just to get some food.

Open your eyes in the night when you see these young and vulnerable girls looking for a place to sleep under a lorry or bus at the lorry park!

Don’t close your eyes and ears when desperate mothers are begging for food and money for their children.

Don’t close your eyes and ears when girls are begging for support to go to school, especially, when they are ready to go to Junior High Schools, Senior High Schools or University.

Don’t close your eyes on the many teenage pregnancies!

Lend them your ears when they want to tell you their story and give them your shoulder when they cry out and want to lean on you for a while!
Girls have the potentials to become leaders in Ghana! Treat them with respect and give them your full support! If we join our forces, we can make the difference to these girls!

What we witness today is the result of the selfless commitment of just two people, working together with a team of faithful housemothers. And today, we can proudly boast of Vida, Rahana, Akuso and many others who are now doing very well in their various vocations.

Can you imagine? The day the first female president of Ghana will be chosen? It’s a nice dream and Nelson Mandela’s one liner” It seems always impossible, until it’s done” sounds like music in my old ears!

Thank you for being here and thank you for listening to us!