The Ashanti Regional Office of the Ghana Tourism Authority (GTA) has distributed over 200 bars of locally made chocolate to children who are on admission at the Kumasi Maternal and Child Healthcare Hospital.
It formed part of this year’s version of the National Chocolate Week celebration.
The gesture coincided with the celebration of this year’s Valentine’s Day and was done nationwide through a collaboration with COCOBOD and Cocoa Processing Company.
This year’s national chocolate week was done under the theme; “EAT CHOCOLATE, STAY HEALTHY, GROW GHANA” and sub themed: “CHOCOLATE FOR ALL: TASTE, SHARE AND CARE”.
The event is celebrated to promote the consumption of chocolate and highlights chocolate as a healthy product.
After official presentation at the forecourt of the Kumasi Child and Maternity Hospital, staff of Ashanti GTA moved to the various wards and distributed the bars of chocolate to the children.
Mr. Frederick Rudolph, Ashanti Regional Director for GTA said the gesture “is a way of showing our love to the children and their mothers and to also let them know that even though they are in the hospital today, there are people out there who still care about them.”
He added that the move is also a way of letting nurses and health officials know the benefits of eating chocolate and cocoa products.
The Regional Director asserted that, instituting the knowledge vis-a-vis health benefits of consuming cocoa products in children makes them become partakers of cocoa products consumption for the good of their health.
Rosemond Kusi Owusu-Ansah, Deputy Director of nursing Services for Kumasi Maternal and Child Healthcare Hospital thanked the Ashanti Regional staff of GTA for celebrating the National Chocolate Week with children at the facility.
She admitted that , chocolate is a cocoa product that is naturally equipped with a lot of nutrients “and for choosing our facility is a great blessing for us.”
