On Sunday, the 9th of February, 2020, which marked the climax of the Children’s Week Celebration under the auspice of the “Holy Childhood Week”, children from Our Lady Star of the Sea Catholic Church, Dansoman, Last-Stop and their outstation Our Lady of Lourdes, Glefe, together with their animators and Youth Chaplain embarked on a trip to the Orthopaedic Centre, (OTC) in Adoagyiri to visit their brothers and sisters and also to make a donation. This years Missionary Childhood Week Celebration is under the theme: “Baptized and sent as young witnesses of God’s love to all” ( Jn 13:35)

By the grace of God, we arrived the OTC at 3.22 pm. We were welcomed by a representative from the centre, after which we offloaded the items to be donated.

We were hosted by Uncle Eleazar Asante at the summer hut. He gave us a brief on how the OTC was founded. The OTC was founded by Brother Tarcisius who came from Holland to Ghana to do missionary work, while at it, he started a project, people applauded him for the good work and others helped in building some of the facilities around. In the year 1961, the project was completed and that is the beautiful edifice which we call the Orthopaedic Centre (OTC). We were informed that Brother Tarcisius passed away in the year 2014 and was buried at the church.

We then took a tour of the place starting from the OPD and the workshop where the prosthetic legs were made. In front of the OPD there is a statue of a man with one arm and one leg holding a cross. He explained that this meant that “disability is not inability”. He showed us pictures of people who had been through unfortunate situations and came to OTC and had their lives transformed. One of such people was a man who was electrocuted by a high tension cable whilst working for someone. He had both arms and legs cut off and was brought there. He was taken through psychological Counseling sessions after which he had prosthetic arms and legs made for him.

After two years, he was able to use his arms and legs. We were told that the prosthetic arms and legs were made at OTC workshop, that they had about 44 staff members there. We visited the crocodile cage which had a male and female crocodile in it. The female was pregnant. We also caught a glimpse of the monkey in its cage. Her name is ‘Suzie’. We went to see their dormitories and we must say they were so neat and beautiful.

We were taken to the hall where Sr. Elizabeth Newman gave a welcome address and interacted with us. We in turn interacted with the children at the OTC. They did a choreography, it is so nice that you couldn’t tell they had any issues with their arms or legs. The Mystical Rosestars from our parish did a song rendition and we all enjoyed it.

We came to the forecourt where we did a presentation of the items we had brought for them. They consisted of a giant deep freezer, toiletries, corn, rice, beans, yams, pieces of cloth, canned fish, oil etc. They were so appreciative of this gesture and asked that we come again.

At 5.30 pm we said goodbye to them, boarded the bus and set off back to the parish.

 Source: Adwoa Boadiwaa Antwi-Agyei/ Daniella Anwelle/ Antoinette Baku