Growing Healthy Food & Healthy Children in Ghana

Janet (8) and her sister Abigail (6) live with their mom, Grace, in Beposo in the Atwima Mponua District of the Ashanti Region. Though their mother never attended school herself, she vows to give them the best education possible. Each morning, she sends them off to school in Beposo where they start their day with a protein-rich breakfast porridge. 

Grace is multi-skilled, diversifying her petty trading and ready to try new things. In order to provide for her children, she egages in many business ventures. On any given day she might be selling kenkey, doughnuts, or bananas, depending on when you catch her.

When asked why she works so hard, Grace's reason is simple: “As a single mother with two children, I have a lot of load on my shoulders with no one to help and if I don’t do it no one will.” 

The inability of many rural entrepreneurs to diversify their businesses has led to the premature collapse of businesses which could have provided jobs to young people, to support their education and reduce incidents of crime. Grace is determined to provide for her children, using whatever skills and resources are available to her. By diversifying her businesses, Grace is better able to capitalize on when different items are in ready supply, keeping her costs low and selling what is most in demand. 

Though she is a hard worker and doing her best to educate her children, life for a single mother is not always easy. Knowing her children will get a healthy breakfast each morning helps lighten her load. 

“The SHI QPM school feeding program has been of great benefit to my family. My mind is always at rest knowing that my little girls will be served breakfast at school. This program has really helped me a lot. It has made it easier for me to take care of my daughters.”

Thank you for your generous support, which eases the burden on single mothers like Grace. 

International Youth Week is August 6-12! During this time, GlobalGiving is generously matching new recurring gifts. Can we count on you to change lives of more children like Janet and Abigail? Start your monthly giving today! Give the gift of health and brighter futures! 

Links:

• Visit our sister project to prevent stunting among newborns

Iddrisu is a proud husband to Sawdatu and father to their five children. He worked very hard to provide for his family. He started off as cab driver driving someone else's vehicle, and little by little, he saved up enough to buy his own personal cab.  As he earned more from his own cab, he even started a second business selling recharge cards in his rural community of Timeabu. He was able to provide for his wife and children. He had big dreams that they would finish school and become responsible adults. Life was good. 

But one fateful day, something terrible happened and he lost everything. Iddrisu was in a motor accident and because he had no health insurance, he had to sell all his property to cover his medical bills - including his cab, his family's primary means of income.  The family was left to rely on their one acre farm for both food and income. Feeding all seven family members became very difficult.

In cases such as Iddrisu’s, who can’t engage in vigorous farm activities due to the motor accident he had and also lacks the financial resource to hire the needed manpower, it is quite common to pull children out of school to help on the farm, particularly older children. But because of the school breakfasts, Iddrisu and Sawdatu have been able to keep all five children in school after the accident, instead of pulling them out to help work to provide enough food to go around. The boys help on the family farm only during weekends and holidays so they don't fall behind in school.

Your support of Self-Help's school feeding program has helped Iddrisu and Sawdatu's children stay in school and better nourished during this tumultuous time.  According to Iddrisu, “One of the best things to happen to me and my family is the SHI school feeding program. There is nothing more assuring for a parent than to wake up and never have to worry about what your children would eat before going to school.”

To help make ends meet, Sawudatu has been linked to Self-Help's micro-credit program, so she can access training and micro-loans to start a trading business. As a micro-credit beneficiary, she will be able to access Ghana’s national health insurance to protect the family against future major medical bills.

Thank you for your generous gift to end child hunger, which is helping families like Iddrisu and Sawdatu's help themselves. 

This Father's Day, you can honor the sacrifices your dad made to raise you with a gift to Self-Help International that will help ease the burden for a family like Iddrisu's. Gift a gift to end malnutrition for children in Ghana and select the "Donate in honor" option to print or email a free card to Dad. 

Links:

• Learn how we help mothers better feed their children long-term

Augustine was born into a broken home. But thanks to your support of the school feeding program, he's getting stronger each day.

When Ataa was in her final year of junior high school, she found herself pregnant. Ataa’s father became very agitated with the man who impregnated his daughter, and after series of disputes between the two families, the man was arrested. Ataa’s father could not come to terms with the fact that his daughter had become a school dropout after investing so much in her education. He became a laughing stock among his peers, especially those who thought he was foolish to educate his daughter in the first place.

There was too much anger in the home, so, like many poor girls in rural Ghana, Ataa decided to leave the community and set out on her own. But she found that the world was tougher than she imagined. By the time she and her son Augustine returned home, they were both in worse condition.

Ataa’s mother lamented, “Though, I am not a nutritionist, when I saw Augustine I knew right away he was suffering from chronic hunger.” By then, she explained, Ataa was expecting again. “I wondered how my husband and I could take care of Ataa, her pregnancy and her son.”

Eventually, Augustine and his half-sister Suzy came to live with their grandparents, and they enrolled Augustine at in kindergarten at Beposo D/A School, where they are grateful that he receives free breakfast every morning.

“I enjoy the porridge, especially when I am eating together with friends,” says Augustine.

“I must say my grandson is not the only one who owns SHI gratitude,” said Augustine’s grandfather.  “The zeal with which the children at Beposo Basic School eat the porridge is amazing, and I ask myself how many of these children would attend school regularly if no porridge was served?”

Augustine’s grandmother added in, “Every parent from Beposo must be thankful to God and Self-Help.”

Augustine, now eight years old, is developing interest in school. Though he had a rough start in life, his grandparents have high hopes that he will complete his education, become responsible and serve his community.

Thank you for your support of the school feeding program, and supporting children like Augustine to get the nutrition their growing brains and bodies need! 

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At Self-Help, we know that fighting hunger isn’t a quick fix. It requires both feeding interventions to support children already experiencing malnutrition; and at the same time preventing malnutrition for the next child by working with mothers. If you’d like to learn more about our work to support teenage girls to stay in school and delay pregnancy until they are able to care for a child, visit our sister project here. In honor of International Women's Day today, GlobalGiving is matching all donations made to Stop 125 Teen Girls in Ghana from Missing School today only! 

Links:

• Learn about our work to support teen girls to avoid pregnancy

“Meeting Self-Help has brought something big to my family. It has really taught me the value of useful advice; help comes in many ways apart from money. The advice from SHI has indeed brought joy to my family.” - Charity

Many African youth have lost their lives attempting to cross the Mediterranean Sea to Europe in search of greener pastures. Often, their families are left wondering about their fate. “My husband may be a victim and I lived in constant fear," said Charity, a twenty-eight year old mother of two.

She lamented, “Poverty and hardship have engulfed my family and life has been so unbearable. The father of my first child denied responsibility for my pregnancy and my current husband left home and I have not heard from him since February 2016.”

Charity has two lovely children, Dorothy and Candy, aged 10 and 5 years respectively, in Class 2 and Kindergarten 1 at Ama Badu D/A Primary School. Charity tells Self-Help that after Dorothy’s father abandoned them she became traumatized and dejected. She was able to pull herself together through counseling from family members and friends. “After putting that ordeal behind me, I later met Ofori and we gave birth to Candy, my second child. He took good care of us until one day he decided to travel to Mali,” she told SHI. “He used to send us money for the first six months after he traveled and suddenly I lost touch with him.” After not hearing from her husband she went to her in-laws but they had no information about him either.

Ofori was a carpenter and would carve stools for Charity to sell. “My only source of income was from the sale of the stools, so when my husband left I was doing virtually nothing that could fetch me money to keep my family. I was feeding my children from my mother’s purse.” Charity said that after attending a meeting organized for the women of Ama Badu she was motivated and decided to start her own business of selling food at Ama Badu D/A School. At the meeting, she heard Self-Help staff talking about the need for parents to work hard to send their children, especially daughters, to school.

“Until that meeting with Self-Help, I had decided that Dorothy would not go back to school the next academic term but I had a change of mind at the meeting.” Charity told us that she had been hoping that her husband would come to their aid, but after meeting Self-Help at Ama Badu she decided to take matters into her own hands and began to support herself independently. She started a small business by selling prepared rice to schoolchildren during their lunch break since there is often nothing for them to eat at that time, even if their parents send them to school with lunch money. Though she was afraid the business would not be viable, she was encouraged by the advice she got from SHI. She is grateful that her daughter Candy gets breakfast at school each day through Self-Help's School Feeding Program, so Charity doesn’t have to worry about what Candy will eat in the morning. She feeds Dorothy some of the rice, and sells the rest to students during lunch break.

Charity tells SHI that her household is food secure and her business is doing quite well. She said, “Prior to the meeting all I was looking forward to was to get money from someone to buy clothes and sell. I never thought of starting a small business like this because I did not know this could be of great assistance to my family.”

Thank you for your support of children like Charity's this year! Happy holidays to you & yours!

PS: Still shopping for a last minute gift for your loved ones?  Consider making a gift in their honor!  When you support this project, you can download and print off a gift card to give to your loved one so they know exactly what a difference you're making in their honor this season!

“I started ‘galamsey’ in Wasa when I was a teenager. One day I went out to do ‘galamsey’ with my best friend and unfortunately, she fell into a pit and did not survive. I saw my best friend crushed into a deep galamsey pit and died. I was traumatized, devastated, and confused as I watched her die helplessly in the pit. From that day, I vowed never to do galamsey again,”  Leticia told Self-Help International (SHI).

‘Galamsey’ is the term used to describe illegal gold mining in Ghana. It is very destructive and dangerous. Many youth have been lost, and farmlands and water bodies have been destroyed by the associated pollution. Unfortunately, galamsey is a financially attractive option for the youth due to high unemployment rates and a ready market for gold. Due to it’s harsh environmental impacts, it is also  a threat to Ghana’s food security.

When Leticia quitpracticing illegal mining, she relocated to Opanin Adusei village near Ama Badu to live with her husband, Tawiah.  

Leticia tells SHI that her husband does not have a land of his own and depends solely on friends for land for cultivation to feed the familya situation which makes it difficult for him to cultivate large acreages. Leticia and Tawiah have four children of their own, and are also caring for two of Leticia's nieces and one orphan from a nearby village who all live with them. Four of the children are currently benefitting from the SHI School Feeding Program at Ama Badu D/A Basic School: their son, Clement (8 years old, Class 1), daughter Erica (6 years old, KG1) and nieces Doreen and Sarah.

Leticia shared that the feeding program has been very helpful to her entire family. “Getting money for these children to go to school every day would have been difficult for ourfamily. The porridge they consume in the school has been a driving force and a motivating factor in the lives of the children. Whether I am able to provide them with money [for lunch] or not, they are eager to go to school. My children are always happy, although the distance from our community to the school is far, they do not want to miss school and the porridge.”

She again said that her children even want to go to school when they are sick because they don’t want to miss the breakfast porridge. Anytime the children return from school and porridge was not served, she could tell from their facial expressions. They would look moody, tired and agitated. On the other hand, if they returned playful and jubilant that they had received a healthy breakfast porridge that day. “My family is very grateful to Self Help International for assisting poor families such as ours.”

Leticia is a school dropout, a situation she bemoans always. She laments, “I attended school up to primary three (third grade). I become worried anytime I see my colleagues who were fortunate to continue their education to higher levels and the kind of life they live. I have decided to work hard to ensure that my kids go to school to the highest level. I do not want any of them to end up in a village like myself. I want them to mature and be proud of us,-- their parents. Although their father never went to school, he is ever ready to assist in their upbringing. I am thankful for having a caring and understanding husband.”

Thank you for your support of the school feeding program, which ensures that children like Clement, Erica, Doreen and Sarah get the nutrition they need to learn in school now, and develop healthy brains and bodies to earn the education Leticia dreams of for them. You truly give mothers hope and children health.  Thank you for all your support!