“Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around”. I am a native of Ghana and have lived in the US for over 25 years. I developed a deep passion for charitable work when I was a teenager. My passion became a reality during a trip to Ghana to visit family. As I drove around town, the images of street children in both Accra and Kumasi who were begging for money and food haunted me, and this has had a huge impact on my life. During this visit, I observed many families that were barely surviving. Kids and youths were dropping out of school and not able to advance their education. One of the breaking points for me was when I visited to a local village, I came across an elementary school where most of the students where siting under a tree. This was their classroom. At the same village right next to the school was a community health center. The building for the clinic was half way completed.
There was no staff except for a male nurse who came in twice a week. Upon speaking with the teachers at the school and the nurse practitioner at the clinic, I learned about the many challenges that the school and the clinic face every day. Poverty was the main cause of these challenges. I also learned too many girls, children and young women lack access to quality healthcare, particularly sexual and reproductive healthcare. This experience was heartbreaking, but it also inspired me to dedicate my life in helping individuals and family who are in need, especially those in rural villages in Ghana.
I started Nanaida Foundation right after I returned from my trip in 2006, and with the help of my husband, family and dedicated friends, we recruited a team of brilliant passionate individuals committed to making this dream a life-changing reality. Through hard work and dedication, Nanaida Foundation is now a 501c3 organization. My goal for Nanaida is to services students by providing them with necessary school supplies and establish a variety of scholarship funds that benefit hundreds of students especially girls in obtaining higher education, and also help to improve health deprived communities in Ghana by rescuing surplus medical supplies/equipment’s, over the counter medication and delivering them to underserved health systems in the villages of Ghana.
I am a Public Health Professional who seek to make a change in communities who are underserved and underprivilege. In my profession as a Public Health Analyst, I provide leadership to agencies and organizations in the development, extension, and improvement of their health care systems, strategies, and services. I have vast knowledge and experience with Substance Abuse and Suicide Prevention, where I worked with Organizations to create and design over hundred State, Community and Tribal strategic action plans, designed to create measurable population level change utilizing Strategic Prevention Framework. I have also worked as a Foster Care Case Manager, where I worked with families towards reunification and found permanency for youth aging out of the foster care system. As long as I live, it is my privilege to serve and help, to educate and most of all to empower those who are in need.