The over 35-year-old Kumasi Chesire Home, a rehabilitation centre banking its hope on public benevolence, is home to over 23 patients.

But the facility caring for persons with Schizophrenia, depression, and substance use disorders, is battling inadequate medication due to high cost and short supply.

The essence of rehabilitation facilities cannot be overlooked in the quest to promote mental health.

Public Health Officer of the facility Harriet Osei Owusu says the centre is grateful for some donation made by members of the Catholic Philharmonic Choir.

“The services we provide here are enormous, yet medication for patients has become expensive. Many families cannot afford it and so they don't seek our services. The items we have received today will go a long way to ease the challenges we face here daily. We also entreat the public to turn to us,” she said. 

As an intervention, the choir donated food items, toiletries and other basic consumables to the rehabilitation centre.

The gesture forms part of the choir’s 20-year anniversary in evangelism through music.

Vice President for Catholic Philharmonic Choir and the committee chair, Winifred Betori, indicated that the urgency of the conditions in the rehabilitation home influenced the gesture. 

She appealed to the public to take a keen interest in treating people with mental conditions with affection. 

“Mental health is something that we need to pay critical attention to. Normally families and friends neglect and despise them because we feel that they are mentally incapable. So we will entreat the general public, families and friends, that when we have people who are mentally incapable, we shouldn't ignore them, or despise them, but draw them closer. 

"Being 20 years old, we also have to give to show our appreciation and solicit that God will be with us and protect us in the rest of the years ahead in our ministry,” she said.

The Catholic Philharmonic Choir Kumasi is an interdenominational choral group in Ghana aimed to evangelise the Christian faith through music.