HELP EMPLOY VULNERABLE GIRLS

The Plight of a Kayayoo, her Mother and her Unborn Child

With the US$666 we were able to raise locally and globally through GlobalGiving, we began our search for qualified Kayayei in earnest. This meant going to the markets and some congregation points we were directed to. We also visited some websites and watched television shows to identify potential partners and collaborators. On one of such television shows, a pregnant Kayayoo, tells viewers that with the consent of her husband, her father sent her and her mother to Accra, to come and work as Kayayei and send remittance back home. She sleeps next to her mother on a pavement in front of a shop with several other Kayayei. She has no health insurance to cater for her and her unborn baby. She and her mother have suffered all manner of abuse and deprivation including hunger and some of their hard earned, meager belongings had been stolen. Sometimes their customers do not pay the agreed fees, once their goods are safe in booth of their car. This Kayayoo wanted to go to school, but she is being forced to work as a homeless Kayayoo so that her little brother can go to school. She is being exploited under inhuman conditions, so that her father and husband can have a better life back home.

This story moved us so much that we are making arrangements to get her on our project. She will be one of the five that we can support with the US$666 you so generously contributed to. We are embarking on several innovative ways to access donations to make up the full US$25,555 that we need to train and place the targeted 120 Kayayei.

We need all the support we can get to save at least our first 120 girls from sexual, physical and mental abuse, and from poverty. We cannot do it without your support

We have identified four girls and are making the necessary arrangements with a Kayayei Association we discovered during our feasibility study. They were selected based on our entry-level requirements, after interviewing 20 Kayayei from the Association. Three of them will be trained as Domestic Assistants, while the fourth will be in incubation in our Beauty Center. The pregnant Kayayoo in our story extract above, will be interviewed as soon as feasible. The five girls will go through their first-ever medical screening and we will register them under the National Health Insurance Scheme. They will move to Totally Youth and will have access to portable water, toilet and shower facilities, adequate shelter and three meals a day. Training will begin in the first week of June this year, 2015.

Unfortunately, the Kayayei phenomena is raising serious concerns because of rampant rapes and robberies, which occur because the Kayayei sleep in the open and most of them are too week to defend themselves. This is clearly attested to by the story below (www.modernghana.com:

“It was a truly memorable event last night when several hundred street porters, popularly known as Kayayei gathered at Tema Lorry park in the centre of Accra to watch the MHC (Maternal Health Council), programme about their lives. The programme was also broadcast on GTV, Ghana’s leading TV station, sending shock waves across the nation and provoking public and media discussions. After the screening several women gave powerful testimonies highlighting their concerns and the urgent need to stop the increasing incidence of rape and robberies, better maternal health care and provision of social enterprise schemes to lift them out of extreme poverty and exploitation. The event was organized with Marie Stopes International, Kayayei Association and Ghana Information Services Directorate.”

We believe that saving one Kayayoo is a legitimate humanitarian act. Since the Kayayei syndrome is a complicated problem to solve, it will take a whole lot of interventions to curb it. And the faster they kick in, the better. This goes for our project too.

If we could just close our eyes and imagine a daughter or a younger sister of age 10 -24, going through this horrendous experience of sexual, physical and mental abuse on a daily basis, we will not sleep a wink until we rescue her. Fortunately, the Kayayei are not ours, so all that we can do is to help them out of the kindness of our hearts, as you and many of our readers have been doing. A number of recurrent donations will go a long way to speed up the emergency relief for many Kayayei. We will therefore be grateful to any of our donors and readers who can take up the challenge to make monthly donations of:

                                       US$10| US$20 | US$25 | US$50 | US$75 | US$100 | or Your Choice

We also hope that we will continue to receive one-off and occasional donations from readers and our cherished donors and their networks. Our success is your success and together we can save many Kayayei from poverty and all its associated menace or hopefully, get rid of it altogether. In our next update, we will bring you clips from the interviews with the Kayayei.

We are forever grateful to all categories of donors and trust that more readers will join this support team. We thank you for what you have done already and trust that you will continue to support the vulnerable homeless Kayayei in their plight. THANK YOU.

                                                                        Save Kayayei From Poverty

Thanks to our GlobalGiving donors, we will be able to start the “Save Kayayei (Homeless) Girls From Poverty” project in March 2015. We appreciate your generosity and we will be very grateful if you could consider becoming a Recurrent Donor or an Ambassador for the Kayayei.

Putting everything together has been hectic and sad. On a daily basis we hear horror stories on the plight of the Kayayei. The latest was in the Daily Graphic – the most popular Ghanaian newspaper (scanned into MSWord and attached). Too many Kayayei are being raped, robbed, beaten and deceived on a daily basis and yet more of them are arriving in Accra. Within this context, we have to start the project even though we were able to raise only US$333 out of the US$25,550 needed to start and sustain the project. We believe that saving one girl is better than waiting until we can save 15 at a go. 

Within the above, we can train only a maximum of five Kayayei in our first batch. This implies reducing certain recurrent items to the barest minimum to ensure that we can at least take a few girls out of their unsafe environment and give them adequate protection. We will make all the necessary personal sacrifices as usual, to ensure that these five complete their training successfully and go into gainful employment.

To help make the project successful, we have initiated talks with another NGO, which is willing to assist with the placement of the alumni. This placement of the girls is a major driving force for the sustainability of the project. Once the girls are placed at a fee to the company or household, the money will go back into the subsequent budget to bring on board more girls. So we are doing everything to secure this partnership.

 We truly need all the help we can get, so we can remove as many girls as possible, from harms way. We need a few alumni as “been there, done that” Ambassadors, to go to the markets and back home to dialogue with their peers and families, and help stem the flow of girls into the dangerous life of a Kayayo. The faster we can train more girls, the faster we can stop this vicious cycle of rape, poverty, physical and mental abuse of Kayayei. With adequate numbers of Ambassadors, we can shift our focus on stopping this deadly exodus into dangerous market places in Accra and other big cities.

We cannot do this alone. We can only achieve it with your help. Please consider becoming a Recurrent Donor and encourage others to follow suit. We are grateful for your donations but the journey has only just began at:

www.globalgiving.org/projects/save-kayayei-homeless-girls-from-poverty. Help one homeless girl today.

THANK YOU AND GOD BLESS

• Daily Graphic Story on Kayayei (DOCX)