|
1. Operation Mango Tree Mama Laadi's Foster Home
Background
Mama Laadi's Foster Home is located in Bolgatanga in the poorest upper Eastern Region of Ghana. Bolgatanga suffers from many deeply embedded economic and social problems, extreme poverty and poor educational and health facilities. In this context, there is next to no provision for people with special needs and extreme prejudices affect those suffering from taboo issues such as HIV / AIDS, learning difficulties, teenage pregnancies and conditions such as epilepsy of which there is little understanding.
Mama Laadi, was born into poverty and spent years begging as a street child until she was found by a charitable nurse who paid for her to complete secondary education and train as a community nurse. As a nurse she lived in a tiny room with 12 children she had rescued from the streets. Afrikids has since built her a permanent home where she lives with up to 50 children, many of whom are orphans who made their way to Bolgatanga to beg for food. A number of the children have disabilities and many are very troubled when they arrive. Where Laadi's children have families who are too poor to feed them, every effort is made to reintegrate children with their families by providing a package of support including micro-finance loans.
Maria and Pauline spent time at Mama Laadi's home. It is a place full of fun and energy with laughing children tumbling over one another everywhere you turn. The older children care for the little ones, some as young as two - and help to prepare the evening meal. Maama Laadi gets up at 3.30am each day to prepare breakfast and lunch boxes for her children. The children leave for school at 6.30am on a bus organised by Afrikids and arrive at school at 8am. Every child is provided with a uniform and books and completes primary and secondary education. They then have a real chance of further developing their skills through a number of options or of finding employment.
Operation Mango Tree is a project of Afrikids, a charity supported by The Corporate Goat. Without the care and support Mama Laadi provides, the children she helps would live in abject poverty and some would die. Instead, over the years, hundreds of children have been given a real chance to look forward to a future that means, in simple terms, that they and their families don't go to sleep hungry every day of their lives.
For a small cost, the lives of hundreds of little children in the world we all share have literally been changed forever.
Operation Mango Tree Mama Laadi's Foster Home
Projects Supported 2007/2008
Salary for 2007 of Patience, a home help who helps Mama Laadi to care for her children
This project is funded by Osborne Properties: £637.
To provide all of Mama Laadi's children with milk each day for a year
2008: Private Donor: £10
Milk for Mama Laadi's Children
2007: Private Donor: £75 as a thank you for the life of a much loved aunt Kathleen Tumelty (Birmingham)
School Fees for Mama Laadi's children
2008: Mrs J M Sloan: £500
Contrubition to the cost of two teachers Thomas and Boniface to provide additional learning support to those children who need extra help, for one year.
2007: Una & Paul McAlinden £100
Cost of the school bus to take Mama Laadi's children to and from school every school day in 2007 Osborne Properties: £1,125
School Bus 2008
Francis & Imelda Mulholland: £100
Building of a library and provisions store. The store will be in the grounds of the Afrikids Medical Centre and will sell 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.
Diversiton: £2,000
*AfriKids is a Child Rights Organisation, which works alongside indigenous communities in Ghana to improve the quality of life for rejected and vulnerable children. The charity specifically targets the root causes of the children's problems, by improving community support services and by providing access to basic education and primary health care. It is also committed to ensuring the sustainability of all its projects' activities.
2. Operation Sunlight (Ghana)
Background
The mining communities of the Talensi Nabdam district in Ghana's poorest upper East Region are isolated outposts in the hot, dusty scrubland, miles from the nearest dirt road. People go there for one reason only - to try and escape the abject poverty and hunger that blights their lives. The compound homes are crumbling; there are no medical facilities, no water supplies and the few schools that have been set up by compassionate locals house in excess of 100 children of all ages who are taught in single tumbledown shacks.
Whilst child labour is technically regulated, young children are used to support the mining industry, particularly the 'informal' mines. They are exposed to a myriad of health risks including TB, mercury poisoning and even serious injury or death. The hopeless poverty faced by their families' forces them to knowingly allow their children to face these risks. Other young children arrive at the mines alone having left families who simply cannot feed them
In Ghana, Maria and Pauline saw boys, as young as twelve, strap a torch to their heads and then scurry 100ft down a makeshift hole to crawl a further 100ft along a tunnel to commence a 12 hour shift. In a community where we were surrounded by skinny children with bloated bellies, these little boys had upper torsos that looked as though they had spent every day of their lives working out in a gym.
At the end of their shift, they would lie on a blanket at the mouth of the mine and sleep till their next shift began. Seven days a week, week in week out, they worked and they slept - so that they might have something to eat. This small scale mining is one of the worst forms of child labour in the world because of the hazards it involves. It thrives only because of abject poverty.
Operation Sunlight, which will be delivered by Afrikids, a charity supported by The Corporate Goat, is a ground breaking project to tackle child labour in the mines of the Talensi - Nabdam. Its goals are to prevent 450 children from entering mining and to manage the withdrawal, placement and rehabilitation of 150 children who are already working in the mines.
The project, which is part funded by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) is necessarily holistic in its approach and includes working with all local stakeholder organisations, organising community awareness, advocacy and education programmes, providing local mothers with micro-finance loans and skills training so that they can increase their families' income and alleviate the pressure felt by the child to work in the mines and providing support, rehabilitation and skills training / work placement programmes or a return to school for the children who leave the mines.
The Corporate Goat is aiming to provide investors to support unfunded elements of the part of this project that will achieve the withdrawal of 150 children currently working in the mines.
Operation Sunlight
Projects Supported 2007/2008
Contract with master trainers to enrol 50 children currently working in mines in appropriate vocational training for formalized apprenticeships. (Gap funding)
DHL: £590 
Uniforms for 50 children in training
Osborne Properties: £882
Apprentice fees and required dues to association and welfare for the 50 children in training
Osborne Properties: £235
Provision of 2 goats for each of the families of the children withdrawn from the mines as part of a support programme to help them to climb out of poverty and remove the pressure for their children to work in the mines.
9 Sets of 2 goats - Osborne Properties: £270
20 Sets of 2 goats - Private donor from sale of book signed by Princess Diana: £600
1 Set of 2 goats - Private Donor: £30
School fees for children removed from the mines to attend school
Horton Housing Association: £200
Donation to Operation Sunlight
Mr TG Horley: £100
3. Operation Smiles
Background
Operation Smiles is grass roots, rural development programme working with communities in Ghana's Northern Region to tackle the root cause of poverty endured by, in particular, young women and children. The Northern Region is one of the poorest areas of Ghana and poverty is compounded by the out-migration of the young, economically active population to Southern Ghana. For those left behind, life is dependent on the increasingly infertile soils.
Over 70% of the Northern Region's population relies on subsistence agriculture for survival and in the rural villages where Operation Smiles is based. Virtually no NGO's work in the area, which is difficult to access.
Afrikids, a charity supported by The Corporate Goat, is working to:
-
provide short term emergency residential care to orphaned or abandoned children.
-
give access to micro-credit, business training, support and monitoring to young mothers
-
give vocational skills training to young mothers.
-
work towards making the project sustainable by 2009 through income generation initiatives such as a piggery, a purified water distribution and a mango plantation.
During a recent visit to the area, Maria and Pauline found extreme hardship and malnourished babies three of whom were, in one village, judged by the project leader, a trained nurse, to be within weeks of death. One little boy aged 11 months lay across his mother's lap lifting his head from time to time to cry out in hunger before wilting back on to her lap. He tried to raise his arm towards us but the effort was just too much and his poor, skinny little arm just drooped beside him.
Arrangements were made to provide short term nutrition to these babies and, very importantly, to arrange microfinance loans for their families. Enabling people to increase their income generation is fundamental to the goal of making assistance sustainable in the long term. Income generation projects may vary widely from breeding pigs, goats, sheep, guinea fowl and other livestock to a wide range of small businesses - for example, hairdressing, weaving, production of foodstuffs, a variety of crafts, furniture, shopfittings. Local people know what they can sell; they just need help to take that first all important step that will enable them to help themselves. Micro finance is given by Afrikids in the form of interest free loans. Repayment schedules are agreed and invariably delivered. Often the money enters a community welfare fund and goes on to help more and more new people.
Operation Smiles
Projects Supported 2007/2008
Provision of batches of 15 micro-finance packages at a cost of £60 per loan, to help to kick start the income generation capacity of a community. A micro-finance package includes a financial loan (which is repaid and passed on to a new individual or family when income generation is secure), ongoing monitoring of progress, business support and admin support.
15 micro finance packages - Osborne Properties: £900
6 micro finance packages - Gordon K Hairdressing, Newry: £300 
8 micro finance packages - Newry Clinic: £500
15 micro finance packages - Clear & Critical Thinking Ltd: £900
Construction a meeting/training faculity at Nakuaabi Community Centre.
AfriKids is establishing a community centre near Nakuaabi which is being built on a wing by wing basis, to allow the community to reassess its needs at each stage. The first wing is focusing on the needs of young mothers and their children in the community.
There are a disproportionately high number of young single mothers in the area due to a lack of family planning provision, traditional practices which result in the abuse of women and a dowry system which, with increasing poverty, makes it impossible for many girls to marry. Typically the girls who fall pregnant are unable to care for themselves or their children adequately because they do not have an education or marketable skills. They are also often ostracised for having had children outside of marriage. This leads to great suffering for the girls and infants concerned as well as exacerbating the problems of poverty and the high number of dependant as opposed to economically active people in the community for generation into the future.
This project will lead to the provision of a meeting / training facility in the Nakuaabi Young Mothers' wing.
The Centre has the following important targets for 2007:
-
To give access to micro-credit, business training, support and monitoring to 20 young mothers
-
To give vocational skills training to young mothers
-
To make progress towards making the project sustainable by 2009 through generating initiatives such as a piggery ,a purified water distribution business and a mango plantation
Osborne Properties: £4,000
*AfriKids is a Child Rights Organisation, which works alongside indigenous communities in Ghana to improve the quality of life for rejected and vulnerable children. The charity specifically targets the root causes of the children's problems, by improving community support services and by providing access to basic education and primary health care. It is also committed to ensuring the sustainability of all its projects' activities.
4. Operation Zuarungu
Zuarungu is an isolated set of 20 rural village communities in Ghana's Upper East Region. It is extremely poor and suffers from very limited educational and medical facilities. Charles Dagore, a local pastor, is one of the many community members committed to changing this situation.
In 1997 Charles began giving lessons, under a mango tree, to children who could not afford to attend school. When AfriKids, a small, highly effective charity committed to improving the lives of very poor adults and children in Ghana heard about Charles' work, they gave him a small grant to build a shelter for his school. Afrikids were so impressed with the results that it was agreed to provide additional funding for Charles and his team of local volunteers to scale up their work and the Zuarungu Children's Centre was born.
The centre, which opened its doors in early 2005, is now at the heart of the community and is slowly but surely making a real contribution to reversing the fortunes of the people of Zuarungu, through the following activities:
-
Primary education, school lunches, good toilet facilities and clean water for 300 children.
-
National health insurance and first aid for all 300 children.
-
Micro-finance support for all the children's families; every family has or will receive a micro-finance grant to invest in income generating activities such as basket weaving, shea butter, extraction or production of local crafts.
-
Goat rearing; all the children's families have or will receive two goats for rearing on their land. These families will return one of the goats' offspring to the centre every year in place of school fees, helping to make the family and the centre itself sustainable.
-
Medical care for the entire community at the centre's clinic which is now run by the Ghana health service.
-
Vocational training in batik, tailoring and cloth weaving to over 100 students; the course fees and profits made from sales of the produce are channelled back into the centre's running costs.
-
A commercial poultry farm, due to be opened in 2007 to create an income to cover staff salaries.
A new bore hole for residential and agricultural use is to be dug in 2007.
The activities of the centre have reinvigorated Zuarungu's economy and community to such an extent that the future of the children is now much brighter and the Centre is on course to generate all its running costs within five years.
In the meantime AfriKids is committed to funding the Centre's running costs and the remaining equipment it needs. Right now it urgently needs school desks and benches. The school has expanded so rapidly that an old class block next to the school has had to be refurnished to accommodate all the new children. However, currently only half of them have desks to sit at.
Operation Zuarungu
Projects Supported 2007/2008
Provision of Classroom Furniture
Staff and Members of the Northern Ireland Policing Board - £500
5. Operation Flood Respose
Background
In September 2007, Afrikids was hit with unprecedented floods, killing hundreds of people across the continent and destroying countless livelihoods. Northern Ghana has been the worst hit area and has been declared a disaster zone. Afrikids, a charity supported by The Corporate Goat is contributing to the response programmes in 3 key areas where their presence on the ground allows them to act quickly and effectively.
Cumulatively these 3 areas have a total of 52,791 people displaced and in need of assistance, 9005 homes in need of repair and 23 schools in need of repair.
The UN has provided $2m to northern Ghana which is being distributed through the municipal assemblies and in our districts this amounts to some food aid on the ground. Whilst this is very welcome it barely touches on the surface need, as the districts had been suffering drought before the rains andnow need holistic assistance to rebuild their lives. No building materials have been distributed. In addition to the harm to infrastructure, the impact on health has started to emerge with the first reports of cholera reaching the GHS in Bolgatanga. No plans or funding are yet in place to address the possible upcoming outbreak. We are proposing two areas of intervention-
In addition to providing the resources and food for the labourers needed to rebuild reinforced structures Afrikids proposes to initiate a longer term guinea fowl rearing programmefor all the families we work with. With the right training and resources the families will be able to rear guinea fowl and generate enough profit to boost their food supplies and reinforce their traditional homes with cement before the rains come each year. In the instance of a major cholera outbreak AfriKids will work with the Ghana Health Service to treat cholera patients in 8 camps across the three districts.
Operation Flood Response
Projects Supported 2007/2008
Rebuilding 4 schools at a cost of £5,000 per school
Business Donor: £5,000
Rebuilding of family homes at a cost of £85 per home
Ulster Bank - Newry: £510
Dr Petrina Ryan: £85
To contribute to the implementation of a guinea fowl rearing programme for families to generate income to buy food and reinforce their traditional homes with cement at a cost of £136 per home
Private Donor: £884
Private Donor: £200
Private Donor: £50
Private Donor: £50
Private Donor: £100
Private Donor: £50
Private Donor: £50
McCrory Family: £500
6. Bright Academy
Background
In Bolgatanga many children are unable to go to school because their families cannot afford the fees and cost of uniforms, books and stationery etc. For those living on the streets and having to fend for themselves it can be particularly difficult. Without access to an education, many children head to the streets to find work to pay their way through school but without earning enough as anticipated, they still miss out hence the desperate need for a provision for these children.
The Bright Academy was established in Bolgatanga in 1988 by a team of volunteer teachers led by Thomas Issifu with the intention of giving children access to education who would not normally have it. Beginning in a rented house, the Academy eventually progressed to a derelict school campus in central Bolgatanga. In 2005 AfriKids became aware of the school and the need for assistance became clear. Since that time AfriKids has begun a programme to selectively finance initiatives at the school ranging from improvements in its infrastructure to funding sustainability initiatives to finance its running costs.
The Bright Academy
Projects Supported 2007/2008
Provision of new roof for academy
Osborne Properties: £2,000
To invest in one of these projects please contact us info@thecorporategoat.com or call 028 417 54777 |
