Ghanaian actress and movie producer, Yvonne Nelson through her foundation, Yvonne Nelson.Glaucoma Foundation (YNGF) has awarded three brilliant girls an amount of 40,000 Ghana Cedis for winning the YNGF essay competition.
The competition which was organized to raise awareness and convey.Yvonne Nelson’s message about glaucoma across Ghana through the students was launched in July 2021. It was organized for children between the ages of 10 to 16 years and three of those children who entered the competition emerged winners. The students were tasked to write on the topic, ‘Glaucoma, the silent blinding disease’.
More so, the essay competition was organized by Yvonne Nelson as part of the 10th-anniversary celebration of the actress’ Glaucoma Foundation.
That notwithstanding, the three brilliant students received cash prizes, gift vouchers, and other items from sponsors of the competition. The winner received 5,000 Ghana cedis, the first and second runner-up received 3,000 Ghana cedis and 2000 Ghana cedis respectively.
The winners also took home 15,000, 10,000, and 5,000 Ghana cedis shopping vouchers from Casa Trasacco and other goodies from other sponsors of the competition.
Yvonne blown away by students intelligence
Meanwhile, Yvonne Nelson who was obviously mesmerized by the display of intelligence by the children said she was “completely blown away”.
“It is amazing how they were able to express themselves and I haven’t seen anything like this in my life. I was just telling them that when I was their age, I couldn’t have done this. Some of them brought their A-game on and they were just going on. I was truly amazed”.
Yvonne Nelson
More so, the ultimate winner of the competition in an interview said: “I would like to thank Yvonne Nelson and the foundation for giving me this opportunity to raise awareness of the silent blinding disease, glaucoma. Personally, this competition has given me the opportunity to gain vast knowledge about the disease and I would also like to be appointed as the;ambassador so that I can spread the effects of this disease to others”.
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YNGF set out to do more for Glaucoma patients
It can be recalled that Yvonne Nelson launched the Yvonne Nelson Glaucoma Foundation;(YNGF) in November 2010 at the Golden Tulip Hotel in Accra.
During the event, a charity music video was released to support the cause. The video featured Yvonne Nelson alongside Sarkodie, Edem, Fresh Prince, Trigmatic, Bola-Ray, John Dumelo, and Majid Michel.
Nonetheless, Yvonne made a shocking revelation at the event when she said: “600,000;Ghanaians are reported to be suffering from Glaucoma, so I urge everyone to get screened for the disease”.
According to Yvonne, she was inspired to start her Foundation after a close family member became affected with the disease.
Yvonne also noted that she hopes that the foundation will help raise awareness of the disease, encourage people to get tested, and to lobby the Ghanaian government and pharmaceutical companies to ensure that Glaucoma medication is available and affordable to the thousands of people who are affected by this disease.
It is worth noting that ever since its launch, the YNGF has collaborated with the Glaucoma Association of Ghana as they visited towns all around Ghana to carry out free Glaucoma diagnostic testing.
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