After a visit in September 2010, Inter Care started to support this village. The village is the brainchild of Ben, a Ghanaian Pastor and Marion, a teacher from Nottingham who are both members of the Assembly of God Church. It was started in 1997 and the village opened in 1999. they must take most of the credit for the successful funding and procurement of equipment and staff. The village now consists of a school, a hospital and a nutrition centre as well as a farm and housing.

The school, which started with 3 small classrooms, has 300 pupils (this year is the first year that they have junior high school classes). The catchment area for the school is a radius of 70 miles with a population of 165,000. Ben and his team have obtained sponsorship for the school fees of over 80% of the children attending the school (from individuals and groups) and they are giving the rest free schooling.

They have also obtained sponsorship for the registration fees for the GHI for 25,000 children and 80% of the adults in the area. They receive no money from government other than repayment of medical bills through the NHI which is unreliable but does come eventually.
They have their own farm and as a result of a visit from David Purdy they are farming “Gods Way” using natural fertilisers etc. the results have been amazing and, where they were getting 2.75 tons of Soya per acre, they are now getting between 5 and 7 tons. They also have a pilot scheme to train farmers in the district to use this method of growing crops.

The medical centre opened in 2006 with Dr Felicia at the helm with a team of 3 other doctors and 2 students, it has since been upgraded to a hospital where they have male/female surgical and medical wards, paediatric, and maternity wards. They have an ultrasound machine and the staff to use it. Last year they treated 18,900 patients coming from 123 communities, some travelling over 70 miles to reach the hospital. The doctors and the pharmacist seemed to be very aware of their capabilities and presented a very frank view of which medicines they would be able to use, should Inter Care decide to support them. They do buy a lot of medicines, their drug bill is £15,000-£20,000 per quarter but they are concerned about the many substandard drugs which they receive. Treatment failures due to poor quality drugs are common and they would much appreciate a source of reliable medicines, however small. They are in need of small instruments and gloves etc and completed a drug questionnaire before we left. They have few HIV/AIDS patients who are referred to Tamale for counselling, treatment and monitoring. They have a particularly effective nutritional centre with a compound for mothers and babies to live in until the children are well enough to return home. They also encourage the fathers to come and stay and bring food for their families if possible, thus giving them the responsibility of looking after their families.

We are delighted to be able to support this village after a grant from Access 4.

www.thekingsvillage.org