ARMAJARO SUPPORTS KYEKYEWERE SCHOOL (PAGE 42, JULY 28, 2010)

IN line with its social responsibility programme, Armajaro Ghana Limited, a leading licensed cocoa buying company is constructing a three-classroom block for the Municipal Assembly Primary School at Kyekyewere, a predominantly farming community near Dunkwa-On-Offin in the Central Region.
Funds for the project came from the Armajaro’s Traceable Cocoa Project, an initiative, which is being implemented with support from the Ghana Cocoa Board.
Under the Traceable Cocoa project, Armajaro traces the source of higher cocoa purchases and accordingly rewards communities with development projects.
A sod-cutting ceremony attended by leading managers of Armajaro in the United Kingdom and Ghana, and the chiefs and people of the beneficiary community, has been performed at Kyekyewere.
Kyekyewere has only one primary school, which enrols pupils from the community and surrounding villages.
The original school block collapsed during a rainstorm last year,dislocating academic work. Since then, no help went to the school until Armajaro intervened.
Speaking at the ceremony, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Armajaro Trading Limited (ATL) with headquarters in London, the parent organisation of Armajaro Ghana Limited, Mr Richard Ryan, said the Armajaro group believed in the concept of giving back to communities in which the company operates.
He gave the assurance that Armajaro would continue to invest in community development as a way of improving the living standard of the people.
Mr Ryan said the company had sunk a number of wells in various communities, which had gone a long way to provide potable water for the people.
Mr Ryan said the life of the farmer needed to be improved if the cocoa industry was to see significant improvement.
He urged farmers to continue to do business with Armajaro to enable the company to push more development projects to the communities.
An official of COCOBOD, Mr Daniel Essien, stated that the government and COCOBOD had put in interventions to hit the targeted one million tonnes of cocoa to be purchased by 2012.
He touched on some malpractice that could retard the progress of the cocoa industry, including smuggling and called for concerted measures to address them in the interest of the nation.
Mr Essien called on cocoa buying companies to engage in healthy competition to ensure sanity in the system.
The chief of Kyekyewere, Nana Kwadwo Benfo II, commended Armajaro for its timely intervention.
“Our educational system was collapsing because there was no permanent place for the children to study,” he stressed.
Nana Benfo said by the project, Armajaro had shown that it was operating in the area not only for profit, but to also play an important role in the area’s development.
He expressed the hope that other companies would learn from Armajaro since the government alone could not meet the development needs of the people.