Ebi Bright

Mayor Joined Stakeholders’ to Mark African Children’s Day
June 16 marks 50 years since the Soweto Uprising - when apartheid South Africa killed students who dared to reject Afrikaans, the language of their oppressors, in their own schools. The African Union declared this day the African Children's Day, so we never forget.
Today, I joined a stakeholders' workshop on child health and safety, organised by Child Health and Safety Organisation at the SOS Children's Village in Tema. Under the theme "Protecting Children through Awareness, Education and Prevention," we gathered partners from health, education, security, and civil society - because protecting a child takes a village.
Safety is not a luxury. It is a right - and it is needed most by the vulnerable. When we clear a walkway swallowed by structures, when we bring order to spaces choked with hazards, that is not just about a tidier city. It is about a child who can now walk without weaving through danger.
Child safety and a well-ordered city are the same duty, seen from two sides. Since July 2025, Tema Metro has declared security zones for schools, hospitals, and public infrastructure - because every child deserves protection before harm, not just treatment after.
Treatment is empathy. Prevention is justice. And prevention costs far less than the grief it spares - not only in Cedis, but in the one currency no parent can ever be repaid: the life of a child.
Tema is grateful to Mr. Samuel Frimpong, founder of Child Health and Safety, who took the worst day of his own life - when his son BB burned - and turned it into a shield for other people's children. There is no higher use for pain than that. Tema says thank you, and we will walk this road with you.
On this day of the African child, let us promise the children of Soweto and our own children sitting in our homes and schools: we heard you; we did not look away; and here, in this city at the Centre of the World, we chose to keep you safe.
Thank you, on behalf of His Excellency President John Dramani Mahama, and all of us working to do our bit in our generation. But especially to all of you here - thank you🙏