To Alleviate poverty for single mothers in Ghana by providing training and materials to learn and sustain a trade.
The problem
Many young ladies in Ghana find themselves as single parents due to many reasons such as limited education, access and understanding of reproductive healthcare, women still being seen as bottom of the food chain and prone to sexual violence and trafficked into prostitution or death of the spouse. Due to limited education and inequalities these women have no way to support the family which has detrimental effect on not only them but the children they are trying to support leading to malnutrition, high mortality rates in children, no opportunity for the children to gain basic education and severe economic hardship. Many of these young women have to turn to prostitution to provide basic food for
the children.
The solution
To provide these young women with the skills and materials to learn a trade and support the family enabling the children to eat and attend school. With £3,500 we can open a training centre and shop to support 15 women to learn the trade of a seamstress, we also give them educational training to understand how to run an independent business and provide a sewing machine and materials after the training is complete to start working independently. During the training which is usually 12 months we will also help support the women and families financially to feed the children and enable them to attend school until such time they can support the family themselves. We have currently provided this service to 2 villages but have a further 8 villages to support with this number growing yearly. £3,500 can open this training centre in the village of Twedie which is in the Ashanti region of Ghana 16km west of Kumasi.
What we expect to achieve
To support 15 young women and the families (estimated beneficiaries directly 45-55) to learn a trade and be able to support their family with food and allowing the children to attend school to develop their own education and provide the ability for them to support their future families breaking the cycle of poverty and extreme economic hardship and the children trafficked into child labour and prostitution. To limit malnutrition and mortality within the family and also improve the community. Once they are economically secure, they will be able to fight for their rights to health, nutrition, speech as their voices become heard.