President Mills' Wife Urges Churches To Help Achieve MDGs

Mrs Ernestina Naadu Mills, the First Lady, on Sunday urged churches to help in the realization of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). She said the MDGs were a call to help reduce poverty, ensure universal primary education, combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases and to sustain the environment. The First Lady said this when she addressed students of the Global Evangelical Church Students and Associate Ministry GESAM at the University of Ghana, Legon, in Accra on Sunday. The occasion marked the 20th anniversary of GESAM organized under the theme, "The Role of the Christian Intellectual in Transforming the Nation." Mrs Mills said it was time that Christian youth rose to the high level of responsibility placed on them to lead by example. "In Christ you have been called to a life of integrity, honesty, hard work and respect for the elderly and care for the environment," she said. "As much as I congratulate you (parents) for the good work of raising your children, I charge you to shun the get-rich-quick attitude that is driving many into armed robbery and negative acts such as internet fraud," she stressed. Mrs Mills called on the media to awake up to the fact that the youth, the future of the country, were most vulnerable consumers of the negative programmes telecast daily. "It is the responsibility of media practitioners to reflect on the dangers they pose to the nation when their programme contents do not promote healthy lifestyles," she noted. The First Lady called on the youth to contribute to the Government's "Better Ghana Agenda" in their own small way. "To transform this nation you must focus your energy on identifying development problems in your communities and finding ways to solve them," she said, and added that it was the only way they could add value to what they studied in school. Mrs Mills told the students never to rest on their oars because a lot of responsibility awaited them and said they should not waste their lives on unnecessary pleasures. The Rev. Dr. Nyuieko Avortri, National Chaplain of GESAM, said GESAM was developing a welfare scheme to take care of needy students of its members and called for assistance from all Ghanaians who believed in the future of the youth. He noted that government was making a lot of efforts to improve both quality and access to education at all levels in the face many challenges. Rev. Dr. Avortri commended the government for the speed with which structures were provided for Senior High Schools across the country to accommodate the first year students but called on the government to provide internet facilities to enhance their teaching and learning. "We believe that the key to the progress of this county lies with intellectuals who have life transformation through Jesus Christ," he said.