The acting President of the Shama Traditional Area, Nana Kwamena Wieno II, chief of Yabiw, has commended the West African Gas Pipeline Company Limited (WAPCo) for its continuous support in education, skills training and health in its host communities.
This follows the presentation of scholarship awards to 142 students from five communities in the Shama District of the Western Region and the Greater Accra Region who received full scholarships for their tertiary education.
At least 104 are from the Aboadze area in (Aboadze, Abuesi, Dwomo, Lower Inchaban and Shama communities) while the rest are from Tema Manhean and Kpone.
Nana Wiwno said the scholarship from WAPCo, had always come as a great relief to students whose parents find it difficult to meet the financial requirements.
The beneficiary students are currently pursuing medicine, pharmacy, engineering, law, social sciences, actuarial science and mathematics, while a few others have already completed their first degree programmes.
Speaking at the ceremony, the General Manager, Corporate Affairs of WAPCo, Dr Isaac Adjei Doku, said the company has for the past nine years, invested more than GH¢4million in the programme nationwide.
“We believe that in the not distant future, our host communities will have a number of professionals who would contribute to the development of their communities,” he said.
The company had also introduced the Community Youth Enterprise Scheme (CYES), which is a skills acquisition programme and upon completion WAPCo gives start up tools to the beneficiaries to enable them set up their own businesses.
The objective of the scholarship he said was to support brilliant but needy students to obtain secondary and technical education, and now university education as well as development of entrepreneurs.
He said each year WAPCo supported 10 young people from each of their seven host communities in Ghana to pursue their education. Five of the beneficiaries were selected under the Scholarship Scheme and the other five for the Community Youth Enterprise Scheme.
The CYES provided the youth who had completed basic education but could not pursue further studies due to financial constraints the opportunity to learn a trade of their choice in recognised vocational and technical institutions in Ghana.
From the outset of the WAGP Project, WAPCo decided to invest in the development of its stakeholder communities, particularly in programmes that have had cumulative impact on the generality of the communities in which it works.
He said at the early stage and during the construction phase of the pipeline system, its investments in education were to assist local governments to provide the necessary school infrastructure in communities that lack them.
“As a result, we have constructed a number of school projects in the district; key amongst them were the Abuesi Methodist Primary School, Shama Model Junior High School and kindergarten school blocks, and renovated the Dwomo Methodist Junior High School,” he said.
He said so far, we have supported 447 students made up of 339 students in the mainstream scholarship scheme and 108 students under the skills acquisition programme.
Director of the Ghana Education Service of the Shama District, Mrs Afia Anoakoah-Quansah noted that WAPCo continued to invest in the communities in which they operated and they must be commended.
“This is a succession plan that the company is building; thank you for the foresight, this investment will not go waste and urge beneficiaries to take advantage of this opportunity and learn harder,” she said.
