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Help Andrew Sarpong Build A Hospital for his Deprived African Community in Ghana
Hello, my name is Andrew Sarpong and a Ghanaian based in the Bronx in New York in the United States of America.
This fundraiser is to help fund my lifelong goal of building a state-of-the-art hospital for the Wenchi community back home in the Bono Region of Ghana. Bear with me as I explain my motivations for this project.
As a teenager at just 14 years old, I experienced an event so traumatic that it scarred me for life and set me on a lifelong goal to ensure no child ever suffers an experience like that ever again.
A baby girl born with cleft palate in my family in Wenchi South at the time was deemed an 'abomination' and family elders decided to starve the poor baby to death.
What followed were days and days of the innocent baby crying to death. Being a bit old enough, I managed to comprehend what was happening and was left completely devastated and traumatized.
I attempted numerous times to feed or even give water to the poor baby but was stopped by elders. At night, I could scarcely sleep as my ears were filled with the haunting cries of the doomed baby and my eyes filled with inconsolable tears. The trauma was too much to bear and I attempted to physically shut my ears using my hands and other things but I could not escape the cries of the suffering little girl.

 During this time I became a wreck and could barely function at home or at school yet after four grueling days without food and water, the baby still clung on to life.
At that point, a decision was made to ‘get rid’ of the baby via other means and she was poisoned to death.
The trauma of that event never left me. I witnessed other similar atrocities visited on many other babies in my community as these practices were commonplace back then and these scarred me for life. It was only later in life when I got to the States that I received counseling to process those emotions but to this day, I am haunted by the things I witnessed in my youth.
As a result, I vowed that no child would ever have to suffer such a grueling fate as my baby cousin due to ignorance, poverty or lack of access to healthcare.
This triggered in me a deep desire to become a medial doctor in the future to save lives. Alas, as the son of poor farmers in rural Ghana, that dream could never materialize as my parents simply could not afford to educate me past a certain point.
Realizing this, I pivoted from dreaming of becoming a doctor to thinking of other ways to save lives, which led to my lifelong goal of building a massive hospital for my deprived community to save future babies the fate of the unfortunate baby girl who was starved and then poisoned to death and also prevent the kind of trauma I suffered and have carried with me all my life from being visited on any other unfortunate soul.

 As a child, I contracted polio and suffered partial disability. I kept thinking if I had been younger when I got ill, or if I had been born at the wrong time with the wrong ailment, I could have quite easily suffered the same fate as that baby.
After my education and realizing I could not become a doctor, I became a petty trader, selling groceries and materials and saving what money I could. I had already decided that the only way I could afford the hospital I wanted to build was to travel abroad.
Hence in 1993, I gathered what I had saved and traveled to North Africa, braving the Sahara Desert on my polio-ravaged legs to reach Libya for onward transit to Europe. However, I had to stay in Libya for some time during which I worked hard, saved money, and started the hospital project I had always dreamed of.
Eventually, I managed to get to the United States of America where I continued my hard work to continue funding the hospital. For over three decades, I have put everything I have into this project and now require your help to complete it.
Believe you me I have given my blood, sweat, and tears to this project starting from risking my life to travel abroad to make a good living to help me fund this dream.
The Hospital I am building is a 140-room hospital for the deprived Wenchi South community in Ghana where I grew up.

 The hospital is divided into three parts - the main 140-room structure for the patients and doctors offices, a residential facility for doctors and nurses of which 15 rooms have been completed, and a warehouse facility for equipment and storage.
To this day, preventable deaths are rife in the Wenchi community. Children being literally starved or poisoned might not be as prevalent but many children, women, and men routinely die due to lack of healthcare access.
Pregnant women often have to deliver at home or en route to the nearest healthcare facility, needlessly endangering themselves and their child.
Indeed, my own niece recently lost twin children, and her own life, after going into labor and bleeding to death following complications with the pregnancy and childbirth.
These are easily preventable deaths that are ravaging a community due to lack of access to a nearby health facility and this project is meant to change that.
I have put all my finances into this project, often at the detriment of my own personal life.
After decades abroad, I own no residential property in Ghana, this is despite the fact that most 'borgas', or Ghanaians who live and work in the diaspora, own a property or even multiple properties back home.
Health challenges in recent years have also made it all but impossible for me to complete this project of my own volition.

 Aside from dealing with my lifelong polio-caused disability, I recently had open heart surgery, meaning I cannot work as vigorously as I used to.
I also have a son with autism whose condition also adds to the challenges in my personal life.
At this point, I do not foresee a way I can personally complete this project as I have tried to do for most of my adult life. This is when I require the help of the outside world to help me complete this noble pursuit and fulfill a lifelong dream so all my hard work through decades does not come to naught.
Currently, the hospital and its attendant buildings are all at various stages of completion.
A donation in any amount from you could make all the difference in completing this edifice and saving the life of a poor child born with a disability - or an expectant mother and her baby.
I humbly call upon Individuals, organizations both public and private, Non-Governmental Organizations, and more to all come to my aid and to the aid of the people of Wenchi in the Bono Region to complete this edifice and help save lives of the future generations.
Thank you very much and may God bless you!