Accra-Ghana, July 23, GNA – Monsignor Alex Bobby-Benson, founder of Mathew 25 House an HIV and AIDS care facility has received an Honorary Doctorate Degree in public service, from the Providence College, a Catholic Dominican University in Rhode Island USA.
At the University’s 105th graduation, 2023, the Providence College conferred the honour on Monsignor Bobby-Benson a catholic priest for his unflinching dedication to the service of God and humanity especially the vulnerable and underprivileged in society over the years.
“Indeed, your entire life has been a demonstration of an unflinching dedication to the service of God and humanity and this propitious and enviable recognition among many others lends credence to the fact that your motto in life is: “Others,” Dr Ann Manchester-Molak, the Vice President of the College said.
Part of a citation presented to him read: “A living example of the Christian Ideals the very heart of the Providence College mission, you are the embodiment of the values we embrace most passionately and cherish most dearly, with humility, charity and mercy you answer the lords call to love the least among us through ministry that offers hope and healing to those at the margins of society”.
Monsignor Benson, a priest of the Koforidua diocese of the Catholic Church established the Mathew 25 House in Koforidua some decades ago in the peak of the HIV and AIDS fight to provide care and support to marginalised HIV and AIDS patients as well as orphans and vulnerable children whose parents had died from the disease.
The Centre, which remains the foremost Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) that provides care and support for People living With HIV and AIDS (PLHIV) and Orphans and Vulnerable Children, shelter, medical care, food, clothing for affected persons living at the Centre and others all over the Eastern region as well as educational support to their children.
In 1998, Monsignor Benson, a catholic priest who studied clinical and Pastoral Education (CPE) in the USA, returned to Ghana and touched by the suffering of HIV infected persons while working as the chaplain at the ST Dominic hospital at Akwatia, decided to devote his ministry to the care of PLWHIV and orphans leading to the establishment of the Mathew 25 House.
In furtherance of the objective of the Mathew 25 House, Monsignor Benson has established a Clinical and Pastoral Education as a subsidiary to train seminarians and other lay persons on how to effectively care for people with terminal diseases and has also begun construction of a multi-million-dollar hospice, the first of its kind in Ghana and the sub region.
The naming of the Centre was inspired by Mathew 25, a biblical verse which says “For I was Hungary you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, in prison you visited me what you do to the least ones you did it for me”.
In 2017 Monsignor Benson won the second position of the MTN Heroes of Change award, a flagship project of the MTN Ghana Foundation to recognise and reward persons who have provided significant humanitarian services to their communities and personal sacrifices.
Expressing appreciation to the Catholic Church and the Koforidua Diocese for giving him the opportunity to serve humanity in that capacity, he indicated that HIV and AIDS remain a threat to public health and must be given the needed attention to break transmission.
He also appealed to philanthropists and well meaning Ghanaians to help to complete the hospice which would provide care for people with terminal diseases in Koforidua.
