In classrooms filled with future fashion designers, donations from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are opening doors and blessing lives across Ghana.
At the Essipun Technical Institute in Sekondi-Takoradi, enrollment has grown from 15 students to more than 1,000 in just four years after Ghana implemented free tuition for technical schools. Yet the rapid increase left many students learning only theory, without the tools to practice their trades.
On Aug. 18, the Church donated 20 industrial sewing machines, 20 hand-powered machines and 15 irons.
For the nearly 300 young people in the fashion design program, the new machines mean more than just practice — they mean opportunity.
Nana Kofi Abuna V, local chief of Essipun, praised the donation and urged students to act.
“With our leaders, we seek the welfare of our people. So does The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They are also in our communities to do welfare donations to our children and especially our girls,” she said. “They have demonstrated their love. So what do you have to do as beneficiaries? Learn. Act. Use it wisely so that the world’s sustainability will also remain.”
President Jacob Helland, president of the Ghana Takoradi Mission, linked the gift to Christ’s teachings, “Our Church is very focused on helping everyone to grow in their knowledge, not just knowledge of things in the world but also spiritual knowledge. Learning about God, learning about his teachings, living by them, is equally if not more important than learning how to provide for ourselves and increasing our knowledge of worldly things.”
Sister Sondra Ostler, a senior humanitarian missionary, summarized that for Ghanaian students, “It is good you learn and learn well so you can help your families but, most importantly, so you can serve others. Jesus spent His whole life going about doing good. Spend your life going about doing good.”
The day’s cultural performances and student demonstrations underscored the spirit of joy and gratitude. As the school chaplain and a pastor, David Komlagah, prayed in closing, saying, “We pray for many blessings for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We pray for their missionaries as they move around the nations of the world. We pray for the Church to grow and become mighty and greater on the land.”
