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Corporate Goat Supported Project Start up costs for Mama Laadi's Library and Provisions Store (Bolgatanga)
This project is funded by Diversiton
Bolgatanga Bolgatanga is the administrative capital of the Upper East Region and the region's main urban centre as well as being a major stop on transport routes to and from Bolgatanga, and its surrounding region, suffers from many deeply embedded economic and social problems - extreme poverty and poor educational and health facilities being among them. In this context there is next to no provision for people with special needs and extreme prejudices affect those suffering from 'taboo' issues including HIV/AIDS, learning difficulties, teenage pregnancy, epilepsy etc. Many of the children who arrive in Bolgatanga end up living on the streets and it is not unusual for several generations of families to be born on the streets. On the streets, children suffer all the obvious problems of a lack of access to their basic human needs but are also left vulnerable to exploitation, child labour and child trafficking.
Background to the Project Mama Laadi is an incredible individual. She was born in poverty and at age 14 her parents tried to force her into marriage; when she refused she was sent to a nunnery. Desperate to complete her schooling Mama Laadi fled and came to live a hand to mouth existence on the streets of Bolgatanga. She would beg wherever she could to pay her school fees. In her teens, she was taken in by a charitable nurse who paid for Mama Laadi to complete secondary school and train as a community nurse. Mama Laadi has dedicated her life to caring for the most vulnerable and disadvantaged children who have no family to care for them. When she had no home, she would take children from the street and find foster families. When she was working as a nurse, she was given a tiny 40ft sq room as quarters and took in as many children as she could. This is how she was found in 2004 by AfriKids* working full time and being a mother to12 children.
Mama Laadi's dream is to give the most disadvantaged and vulnerable children in greater Bolgatanga's community a new start in life through increasing their access to education and giving 24 hour love, care and rehabilitation from the suffering they have endured. AfriKids have built Mama Laadi a permanent home for 30 children with all the facilities necessary to keep the children safe, healthy and comfortable. The need for this home is sadly, very clear in Bolgatanga and since the family moved in at least another 20 children have come to Mama Laadi's care. Some of these children are living at her home whilst others, are with foster carers and are monitored regularly by Mama Laadi. Whilst Mama Laadi and her family cannot care for an indefinite number of children they have shown this year that they are more than capable of offering a good home to 50 children. AfriKids are now planning to add a new dormitory block to make room for further children.
The Library and Provisions Store Project Alongside this expansion, and consistent with the approach of AfriKids, Mama Laadi is looking to the long term independent sustainability of her project. The challenge of sustainability is twofold: firstly Mama Laadi wants to raise money towards the running costs of her home and, perhaps more fundamentally, she wants to ensure that her children are able to build self sufficient futures for themselves. The family have already opened a small profit making farm and, to produce further income, Mama Laadi wishes to set up a library and provisions store at the AfriKid's Medical Centre. The Centre, purchased by AfriKids at the beginning of 2007, is the best medical facility in Bolgatanga. The store will be in the cool and welcoming grounds of the Centre selling snacks, drinks and newspapers. It will offer a welcome service at the clinic which has both inpatient and outpatient facilities and currently has few entertainment facilities for patients waiting for appointments, or who are on long stays. The library and provisions store will be run by Mama Laadi's older girls, giving them work experience and the chance to begin earning their own money. Profit after wages will be channelled into the running costs of Mama Laadi's foster home. Project Cost The start up cost for construction of Mama Laadi's library and provisions store and the purchase of initial stock is £1,500.
*AfriKids is a Child Rights Organisation, which works alongside indigenous communities in
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