The Ideal Story

Dr. Joseph Kobina Essibu is a philanthropist who spends the bulk of his time, wisdom, energy and resources in helping the poor and needy in society. His compassion goes out to young people who are in need of education, jobs and financial support. As a result, he has become a father to countless people and has raised thousands of young people into their place of destiny.

Dr. Essibu hails from Senya Beraku, in the Central Region of Ghana. The community is unfortunately plagued with several challenges, which include chronic chieftaincy disputes, high illiteracy and poverty rate, child trafficking, lack of jobs and development. As a result, most of the youth and children were living in utter hopelessness, causing the majority to fall out of schools and others to seek for greener pastures outside the community.

Building on this modest accomplishments, Dr. Essibu realized the need to formalize the Foundation to enable it become the main conduit for rolling out the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) of the IDEAL College. A secondary role for Ideal Serve is to help mobilize resources from both corporate institutions and individuals who share in the vision of the Founder and are ready to help realize it. The Foundation, therefore, envisions a world in which all who want to be assisted to develop, are supported. Its mission is to promote quality education and health through the provision of climate smart and resilient solutions for a sustainable world.

The Foundation has since constituted a Board of Directors that is made up of eminent personalities who have helped to broaden the scope and coverage of the Ideal Serve. From a focus solely on scholarships for needy SHS students to cover four well-thought out thematic areas:

• Education;
• Health;
• Climate Change; and
• Social Care

Moved by the plight of his people and in a quest to pursue his mission to help humanity with every grace God has given him, Dr. Essibu founded the IDEAL Foundation, now known as Ideal Serve, with the initial vision of seeing young people who are deprived to gain scholarship and other financial support for their education both home and abroad. Even though the vision was first towards the people of Senya Beraku, it has over the years spread into every part of the nation, wherever needy students hail from.

Initially, twenty-three (23) Junior High School graduates, some of whom had sat home for three years, were enrolled in Senya Senior High School and a few others into other schools outside Senya Beraku. And Dr. Essibu, through the Foundation, ensured they completed their education.

In the subsequent years, other students were enrolled on the scheme but the cost of their education kept soaring such that it became necessary for the students to rather be enrolled in IDEAL College. From 2015 to now, each year, a minimum of 70 students are enrolled in IDEAL College under the scheme. Thus, each year over two hundred thousand Ghana Cedis (GH¢ 200,000) is spent on giving Senior High School education to needy students.