[4:46 AM, 1/9/2019] Abdul Salam Mahamadu: Myself and the regional director of Social Welfare Department of Government of Ghana as he read through some of our works I wrote down for him. He is amazed very impressed and told me I have made his year already by visiting his office with this beautiful project.

He advised me deeply and assured us his total support. He said he will call the Gushegu District Social Welfare department to give us all their support, assist as in any form they can and give us all the promotions possible. He added that they go for social welfare forums every quarter at the national level including all nonprofits in the country and they celebrate young innovative people doing work to end poverty and he shall get me part of one of the forums this year. He even lamented that if he knew about us he would’ve invited us just the ended quarter last year however he assure me that this year, they may hold the forum twice but he will get us on the forum. He added that he as the regional boss for LEAP and all government social welfare activities is suppose to fight extreme poverty with the support and activities of other initiatives such as ours and that LEAP alone cannot break the poverty cycle that’s why they operate the way they do with just a maximum of 106 Ghana Cedis every two months with the hope that other projects like ours will contribute. He added that he will suggest that all their LEAP beneficiaries in Nachem be signed up onto our project and I assured him we will be signing up the entire community which means we are definitely going to include them.

Also he said they will give us our support however LEAP will not be able to partner with us because there will be a lot of meddling in operations. He noted that LEAP gives very small amounts, LEAP gives every two months totally contrary to GiveDirect and that if we want to fund LEAP it means we need to go back to the Table with LEAP and since LEAP operates in the whole country, we cannot sponsor LEAP also our effect regarding what we want to achieve will not be possible if we partner with LEAP so just like the social welfare department support and assist other nonprofits, they will do same for us though not financially but they will go on field with us and we should always let them know if we want them to do anything to support us but we should be sure they will give us the support, promote us etc.

Lastly he noted that they will stay aside and allow us to focus on our strategies, way of operation and hope that we can oneday cover they entire region and hopefully the whole Ghana when government will work together with us to sponsor basic income for the country. As you can see in the pictures, it has been a great day for us

[9:13 AM, 1/9/2019] Kevin Colussi: This is great news, as it sounds like we will get the visibility and recognition that we deserve from the Social Welfare Department… I understand that we should not partner too closely with LEAP, as they are working on there own initiatives while supporting groups like ours… I would like to share the above meeting summery, as a blog post on our WP site…. Would that be okay with you and others? Great photos by the way! 🙏🙇‍❤

[12:50 PM, 1/9/2019] Abdul Salam Mahamadu: Thanks! Yes I will be happy so I can have him read it too