Category:

Help the Helpless

REACHING BEYOND BARS

by Admin September 8, 2021

There is something sinister about the word ‘prison’. It automatically gives a picture of a dark, cold cell with terrible people: killers, rapists, thieves, and just about anyone who has been declared unfit to live freely with regular society. Whatever the truth may be, we must never forget one all important thing; prisoners are our brothers and sisters too. As a matter of fact, I believe that there is Jesus in every prison, for He says: “I was in prison, and ye came to me” (Matt 25:36).

Prison food can never be as palatable as a mother’s cooking, and indeed one thing any prisoner would interpret as love is a hot, sumptuous meal. The Help the Helpless Charity, the humanitarian wing of Bishop Dag Heward-Mills’ Ministry understood the assignment, the prison assignment given by Jesus Himself.

Bishop Dag Heward-Mills with the Prisoners

With this spirit of love and brotherliness, the Help the Helpless Charity has made it a point to visit and donate food to prisoners all around Accra each year. Since it’s inception in 2008, Help the Helpless celebrates Christmas and Easter with our brothers and sisters in delicious style. Help the Helpless donates a hot pack of Jollof Rice or fried rice with grilled chicken, or a KFC Streetwise 2 Meal, plus a chilled bottle of coca-cola and water to every prisoner in Accra; male, female, guilty or innocent.

***Prisoners in Accra receive food from Help the Helpless Charity***

A few years after 2008, these outreaches became monthly. Currently over 700 prisoners in prison cells all over Accra get this special package which most free citizens cannot afford. And it does not end in Accra. Help the Helpless has reached out to prisoners in other nations like La Cote D’Ivoire, Uganda, Liberia and many more African countries.

Prisoners in Gagnoa, Ivory Coast receive food from the Help the Helpless Charity (2013)

Now even Abraham Maslow will confirm the fact that it will be difficult to reform a hungry and cold prisoner. Aside food donations, Help the Helpless Charity has improved the lives and living conditions of prisoners. Free health screening and clinics have been held for hundreds of prisoners in Accra. In Uganda, a whole prison facility including toilets and the police station itself was renovated.

Renovated Prison toilet, Uganda

It is trite that the best time to show love to someone is when the person is at his worst. God showed us this by dying for us at the time that we were deep in sin.

What drives Bishop Dag Heward-Mills to reach out and show love to a prisoner whom society believes deserves to be locked up behind bars in a cold, dark cell?

It can only be love!

By Christie S. Johnson

September 8, 2021 32 comments

General News Help the Helpless

THANKS FOR REACHING! LOVE, CATHY.

by Admin August 25, 2021

It is easy to overlook certain great things God does in people’s lives until you experience it from the eyes of the recipient. This piece is one such experience from the closed eyes of Catherine Nonome.

Catherine was born to a family with 5 other children. She is a quiet and reserved girl, not by choice, but because she was born visually impaired. The best of us are likely to have sympathy for Catherine and leave at just that, sympathy! But not Bishop Dag Heward-Mills. In the words of the great missionary, David Livingstone, “Sympathy is no substitute for action!”

Bishop Dag Heward-Mills started the Help the Helpless Charity in May 2007 to extend a practical hand of compassion towards those who need it most; the blind, the deaf, the dumb, the crippled and underprivileged in our world.

Without the braille, Catherine cannot read. She has read with the assistance of braille since she started school, and she can testify of how expensive these materials are, very much unlike a regular student’s textbook. Every year without fail, the Help the Helpless Charity donates braille materials to schools for the visually impaired in Wa, Akropong, Ghana National, Avekpedume, 3 Kings Special School, and Adidome Senior High, Cathy’s alma mater.

“I remember that day so well. It was in April 2012. The braille machine is very expensive, so for this man to think about us and buy this many for us is special. He bought 4 for the school, and gave some to particular students. I will never forget that day because I was the only girl chosen to get my personal braille machine. I wrote that day down in my diary.”
Catherine.

As God will have it, Catherine is currently in the University of Ghana, Legon, where she is studying Education, Sociology and Social work. She dreams of becoming a teacher, a businesswoman and many more.

She may not have her sight, but through the Help the Helpless Charity she now has a vision!

Cathy is but one special person whose life has been touched by the far reaching hand of compassion of Bishop Dag Heward-Mills.

For more visit:

www.daghewardmills.org

August 25, 2021 10 comments

Charity General News Help the Helpless

HELP THE HELPLESS

by Admin July 16, 2021

Bishop Dag Heward-Mills, in obeying the verse Matthew 25:40 “and the king shall answer and say unto you, inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me”, established the Help the Helpless Charity (HTHC). Established in 2007, the HTHC is the Compassion and Humanitarian arm of the Ministry of Bishop Dag Heward-Mills. Since it’s inception, it has been reaching out to and assisting the Lame, Blind, Deaf and Dumb, Underprivileged, and many “Others” who are Handicapped in the communities and on the streets of Accra, Rural areas as well as International.

Our powerful maiden Love Outreach took place at the Qodesh, North Kaneshie.

It was a gathering of happy and excited people who could not but render praises to God. A total of 171 visually impaired and physically challenged persons together with their helps came to fellowship with the Twi speaking Congregation of the Church.

The Director of Help the Helpless Charity, Elect Mother Dr. Naabea Anika Dwomoh welcomed all of them on behalf of the Founder of the Charity, Evangelist Dag Heward-Mills. She encouraged them to look forward to a year filled with good things and broke the exciting news of the members being bussed to church during subsequent outreaches.

Each of them took home an amount of money, a chilled drink, water and a hot pack of food. They were full of gratitude to the Evangelist for his unending love and support through the years.

July 16, 2021 1 comment