On World Volunteers Day, celebrated on 21 September, prominent public health nurse, disability advocate and Mandela Washington Fellow Miss Gifty Akosua Adzigbey has called for a renewed national commitment to community service, marking the day with a healthcare and social support mission to a remote village in the Gomoa West District.
Miss Adzigbey, whose professional career is deeply intertwined with voluntary service for marginalised communities, led her outreach team to visit James, a young man living with a disability in an underserved, hard-to-reach rural community.
The team conducted comprehensive health checks on James and provided essential support and guidance to his caretaker to ease the burden of home-based care.
Reflecting on the significance of the day, Miss Adzigbey emphasised that volunteering should not be treated as a one-off annual event, but rather as a continuous, daily lifestyle dedicated to restoring dignity to vulnerable groups.
For persons with disabilities in remote villages, physical isolation and a lack of accessible roads often cut them off from primary healthcare facilities, making home-based volunteer visits a critical lifeline.
“My life is deeply rooted in community service,” Miss Adzigbey shared. “Truly, there is no single day without volunteering to put a smile on the faces of the disability community.”
As a Mandela Washington Fellow, Miss Adzigbey drew inspiration from the iconic words of the late global statesman Nelson Mandela to challenge other health professionals, youth and civic leaders to dedicate their skills to voluntary service.
“What counts in life is not the mere fact that we have lived,” she quoted. “It is the difference we have made to the lives of others that will determine the significance of the life we lead. Together, we can make the world a better place.”
During the outreach, Miss Adzigbey’s team spent time with James’s caretaker, recognising that caregivers in rural settings often endure severe physical and emotional strain without formal support systems. The team provided administrative and clinical advice on patient handling, pressure sore prevention and personal hygiene management.
Miss Adzigbey expressed deep gratitude to the individuals, organisations and donors whose logistical and financial contributions enable her team to continually venture into the district’s most inaccessible communities.
She appealed for increased collaboration from corporate institutions, NGOs and the Ministry of Health to expand voluntary home-care services, stressing that reaching rural PWDs in their homes is essential to achieving universal, inclusive health coverage in Ghana.
SOURCE: DisabilityNewsGH.com
God bless the team, Disability News Ghana.
Am always grateful for the support throughout my community activities to ensure I become visible, while you advocate for the disability community