Youth Arise Organization (YAO) descended on the Graceland Needy Child Shelter Home in Bawjiase on Easter Saturday, April 4, 2026, delivering construction materials, health education, and a full day of structured activities to more than 100 children in the facility.
The outreach formed the 2026 edition of YAO’s Community Hope and Charity Campaign (CHCC), an annual initiative that mobilises students, entry-level professionals, and young executives to provide practical support to vulnerable institutions across Ghana.
Children at the shelter took part in drawing, storytelling, a spelling bee, personal hygiene education, malaria prevention sessions, menstrual hygiene guidance, study skills coaching, adolescent relationship counselling, and basic financial literacy. A mini party rounded off the day.
Health professionals from the Arise Center for Holistic Health Wellness and Nutrition conducted malaria testing on-site, while the Youth Alliance for Agricultural Transformation (YAFAT) delivered a home gardening training session designed to equip both children and staff with skills to support their daily food needs.
On the material side, YAO donated one truckload each of sand and gravel, 20 bags of cement, clothing, sanitary pads, toiletries, food items, stationery, detergents, drinks, and biscuits. The building materials are intended to advance a three-unit classroom block that reached lintel level using contributions from the 2025 edition of the campaign.
Samuel Nii Adjetey, Community Development Officer of YAO, said the items came directly from members of the organisation. “All the items you are seeing here are from your brothers and your sisters here,” he told the children, adding that the group remained committed to the shelter’s long-term development.
Moses Baffour Awuah, Global Chief Executive Officer of YAO, traced the organisation’s connection to Graceland to a report from a past participant in its leadership programme who had flagged deteriorating conditions at the facility, including a leaking roof during heavy rain. “Three years ago, one of our people visited this place and saw the situation,” he said, noting that infrastructure repairs had since become a central focus of the campaign’s engagement with the shelter.
Awuah said the organisation also presented a cash token to address any immediate needs not covered by the donated items.
Grace Wobill, founder of the Graceland Needy Child Shelter Home, welcomed the intervention as timely. “We dine here, learn here, sleep here, everything happens in one hall,” she said, describing how critical the classroom project was to the home’s operations and the children’s development.
