The Kings Village Project: A Ray of Hope to the Lost and Destitute

Dir. KVP, Rev. Ben Owusu

A decade of pastoral and humanitarian work by the Kings Village Ghana project in a typical rural community of Bontanga in the Kumbungu District of the Northern Region, has fulfilled the vision of Jesus Christ.

Throughout his ministry some two thousand years ago, Jesus Christ fed the hungry, healed the sick and comforted the poor, and that is exactly what the Kings Village Ghana project, a Christian international development organisation has been doing for the people of Bontanga and beyond in the last ten years.

This came to light recently during the tenth anniversary celebration of the project at Bontanga and the achievements recounted by speaker after speaker to all and sundry gathered at the event, were simply heart touching and breathtaking.  

Achievements

With the support of donors, the Kings Village Medical Centre was able to register over 25,000 newly born babies including twelve year old children in eighty-one different communities on the National Health Insurance Scheme in 2006 to enable them access free health care. By the close of 2008, over 30,000 children in addition to many adults were registered.

In June 2008, a nutrition centre for malnourished babies and children was started. In the five years since its establishment, the centre has treated approximately 1,020 acute cases of malnutrition and 2000 moderate cases of malnutrition who but for this intervention probably would have died.

The medical centre has 58 beds in the emergency, maternity, male, female and children’s wards. It also has facilities such as a laboratory, blood bank, theatre and offer maternal services including an ultra sound scanner. Health officials see between 120 – 200 out-patients and in-patients a day.

Also, since 2005, the project has drilled 34 boreholes, constructed 249 latrines in 15 communities, dug 3,294 soak-aways in 11 communities and extended pipe borne water and made 225 bio sand water filters.

Furthermore, the project has planted 11 churches in 11 different communities in the Kumbungu and Tolon Districts; has poultry and ruminant farms as well as crop farms at Bontanga and Kuli.

In a statement, the Director of the Kings Village Ghana Project Reverend Ben Owusu Sekyere, paid glowing tribute to individuals and organisations that came to his aid to enable him and his wife realise their dream of providing humanitarian services to the people of Bontanga.

He also appealed to government and philanthropists to assist the project build an obstetrics and gynaecological block, staff accommodation, procure an ambulance and also expand the maternity wing, children’s ward and the hospital.  

How the project started

As they set off from Tamale one day to do evangelism in Bontanga, Reverend Ben Owusu Sekyere and his wife Marion came across the Bontanga irrigation project and noticed that there may be houses with electricity and pipe borne water there to rent. 

History has it that, in April 2000, after extensive renovation work on one of the rented houses acquired by the couple, they moved to live in it. From working and visiting villages, the couple had seen the issues that little health care, poor sanitation and a lack of education brought and they were determined to do something about it with the help of God.

Eventually in 2001, the foundation stone of what is called the Kings Village Ghana project was laid on a forty-two acre plot of land which was negotiated for from local chiefs of the area.

Aside building a church, a school, hospital, water and sanitation projects as well as farms were also established alongside to provide medical care, food, education and other humanitarian work to cater for the basic life needs of the people of Bontanga.

 

Meanwhile, the Kings Village Ghana project as part of the celebration of the tenth anniversary also commissioned a boat ambulance for the people of Sangi, a community across the White Volta River in the Kumbungu District. 

The boat ambulance will afford the people of Sangi have easy access to the Kings Village Medical Centre in Bontanga which is on the other side of the White Volta River whenever they are sick.