At the end of 2011 the Ghana Mission Foundation provided €193,000 to fund a number of projects at the Maltese Health Centre in Ghana, also known as hopeXchange.

Mario Cappello, the Maltese Founder of the Health Centre comments: “These projects include the purchase of equipment for the HIV/AIDS department, the installation of solar water heating equipment and the building of the first phase of a bore-hole that will ensure the supply of water during drought caused by climate change.”

The Maltese Health Centre is an 80-bed hospital in the city of Kumasi that will specialise in eye-care, breast cancer, HIV/AIDS, malaria and facial malformation. The hospital will also serve as a teaching hospital for medical doctors in Ghana seeking to specialise.

Two specialised courses in breast cancer have already been organised and each was attended by 160 medical professionals from Ghana. Clinical activities in infectious diseases and malaria, with particular maternal-child focus, will commence in July 2012.

On 16 and 17 January, a high level strategy meeting took place in Kumasi Ghana with the aim of setting up the Malaria and HIV/AIDS laboratory. The date for the commencement of clinical activities within the Maltese Health Centre was also decided during this meeting. In attendance were medical international experts including those from the University of Kumasi, Clinicians, IT specialists, Laboratory personnel and the Director of Human Resources of the Ministry of Health of Ghana. The equipment for the HIV/AIDS department will be purchased through funds that have been raised from Malta and Gozo, and through an Overseas Development Aid grant forwarded by the Maltese Government.

The Malaria project is being supported by the world renowned oil company Exxonmobil with a grant of $500,000 which was announced last year.

The solar water heating project will reduce the amount of money necessary for energy consumption in a non-polluting manner whilst the bore-hole project will supply safe clean water to the hopeXchange medical centre and other nearby villages. Apart from the hopeXchange medical centre itself, the number of people who will benefit from the bore-hole is approximately 7,000 village inhabitants. Funds for solar water heating and the first phase of the bore-hole were received through a Fast-Start Climate Change Initiative Fund of the Ministry for Resources and Rural Affairs and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The Ghana Mission Foundation was founded in Malta in 1998 with the aim of helping ICPE (Institute for World Evangelisation) raise funds for its projects in Ghana – a project which was chosen by Pope John Paul II as one of a hundred projects for the millennium.

Today the hospital, which was built through the generosity of the Maltese and Gozitan community, has attracted the interest of 22 large organisations/hospitals from different countries who will work in the hospital on a voluntary basis. A significant portion of the Centre’s operational and staffing costs will be reimbursed by the Ministry of Health of Ghana.

The ICPE is an Institute for Evangelisation that was established in Malta in 1985 by Mario Cappello and his wife Anna. The Institute organises Schools of Mission which consist of four to five month long training courses aimed at forming and training Catholics as effective evangelists. The institute has now spread in a number of countries namely Malta, Rome, Germany, Poland, New Zealand, the Philippines, India, Indonesia and Ghana.

Last year the Ghana Mission Foundation collected the sum of €211,164 through Malta Government grants and fund raising campaigns and the Foundation was also a beneficiary of l’Istrina. The expenses of running the office and organising campaigns amounted to €18,153.

Donations towards the project can be sent to the Foundation by cheques or money orders addressed to the Ghana Mission Foundation. The Foundation’s office is open every day from Monday to Friday between 9am and 1pm and is located at the Media Centre Complex, National Road, Blata l-Bajda HMR1640. Donations can also be deposited in either of the Foundation’s bank accounts as follows: BOV 11206046019 and HSBC 033-143819-050.

The annual report and financial statements for year 2011 will be available at the office of the Foundation in March.