Group photograph of some workers of Sunshade Foundation
The Sun Shade Foundation, a Kumasi based not-for profit financial organization, has attracted the attention of international volunteers interested in joining the fight against poverty in Ghana.
The primary objective of the Sunshade Foundation is to provide social and financial solutions to the problems of Ghanaian woman.
Some volunteers from the United States and Canada will arrived in Ghana to support the activities of Sun Shade Foundation, which since the beginning of this year has advanced credit to over 900 families in Kumasi alone to help improve the lives of the poor.
The volunteers, led by Juliette Asante, a Ghanaian-born Canadian resident with a deep knowledge of social work, hope to expand their knowledge and experience through their association with the Sun Shade Foundation.
Asante, a former student of Greenwich Community College in the United Kingdom, is noted for her organizational and managerial skills. She has worked for Robertson Brown Health Services in Kitchener, Canada, at Wombwell Hall Nursing Home and at Brookhouse Care Home in the United Kingdom, among other institutions.
She and her colleagues have made social service their passion, providing care to society’s most vulnerable members including the physically challenged and the aged, and in 2011 her achievements were recognized when she received the Top Health Education Student Award.
The volunteers are expected, among other things, to increase the public to access the Foundation and to lead fund raising efforts, particularly in Canada and United States.
Meanwhile, two US-based Advisory Board members, Charli Johnson and Chasity Love, will be visiting Ghana to assess operations and make recommendations to the Foundation.
Johnson, who recently joined the foundation, has over 30 years of experience in the US legal field, while Love is a SIUC Black Togetherness Organization Future Leader Award recipient.
She is also the current president of the National Organization for the Professional Advancements of Black Chemists and Chemical Engineers (NOBCCHE), an organization that contributes to the efforts of local and international organizations through STEM (Science, technology, engineering, and math), book drives, and other means.
Sun Shade Foundation Executive Director Isaac Kwasi Akohene-Asiedu is delighted with this development. He hopes that the expatriates’ involvement will substantially advance the foundation’s objective of reaching out to 20,000 families in the next five years.
The Sun Shade Foundation also trains beneficiaries in customer service and book-keeping and encourages them to save money at no charge as part of its business training and technical assistance programs.
Many traders in Kumasi and its environs will testify that Sun Shade’s operations have meaningfully affected their lives.