This nun aims to get Ghana's children off the streets, and into school

Accra, Ghana, Jul 29, 2020 / 02:00 am

Salamatu Abubakar spent years of her childhood picking up scraps of plastic on the streets of Accra, the African coastal city that is the capital of Ghana. Her dad took the plastic to an open air market, selling it in bulk to recyclers and scrap dealers, and barely earning enough to get by.

In that same market, Samuel Ganyo, who had come with his mother to Accra from a poorer city in Ghana, sold slices of sugar cane to marketplace vendors, shoppers, and people passing by in cars. A popular snack across Africa, sugar cane didn't pay enough for Samuel and his mother.

Daniel Lomotey started working in another Accra market when he was 10. He dropped out of school then, and started working for his uncle pushing a handcart hired by vendors to move their products in the Mandela marketplace. It was hard work, and it didn't pay very much. And because Daniel, like Salamatua and Samuel, wasn't going to school, his prospects for the future looked grim.

When Daniel was 12, he met Sister Anthonia Orji of the Daughters of Sacred Passion, a Nigerian religious sister working in Ghana. Sr. Anthonia helped kids do hard, heavy work on the streets, and helped them get back to school.

Sr. Anthonia is the centre manager and education officer at the Welfare, Empowerment Mobility Centre in the Archdiocese of Accra. Her work is part of the Rays of Hope project, which aims to help Ghana's street kids, like Salamatua, Samuel, and Daniel, by giving them a home, and getting them enrolled in school.

Daniel is 18 now. He met Sr. Anthonia in 2014. And he told ACI Africa, CNA's African news partner, that meeting her is the best thing to happen in his life.

"Through her guidance and support, I am now a final year Junior High student at the St. Peter's Catholic School in Ayikuma. Apart from that, I have acquired the skills in sewing and barbering through training at WEM," Daniel said.

Samuel, who is 16, also lives at the center, along with 22 other young people.

"I have learnt a lot like farming and barbering of hair as an additional skill to my schooling and I advise all vulnerable children who have the opportunity like me to make good use of it," said Samuel.

The center doesn't discriminate based upon religion. Though a Muslim, Salamatu said she has come to love Catholicism, through the guidance of Sr. Anthonia, whom she said is her mentor and mother.

"I picked polythene on the streets for my dad to sell in the Ashaiman market to earn a living. But thanks to Rays of Hope, I now live a life of dignity," she told ACI Africa, adding, "Through the skills training and way of life at the center, I can pray the rosary and other Catholic prayers very well even though I am a Muslim."

Ghana's constitution prohibits many types of child labor. But Sr. Anthonia told ACI Africa that the constitutional law is not always followed, and that many poor children are put to work because of the poverty of their families.

Sr. Anthonia lamented school drop-out, child mortality, child labor, child trafficking, rape, prostitution and defilement of vulnerable children and urged Ghanaians to create a sense of belonging in street children.

She said that with the outbreak of COVID-19, the children ranging between the ages of 7 and 15 in residence at the WEM Center have been placed in various homes.

All the children, she said, were schooling at the St. Peter's Catholic School.

"For the fear of the spread of the coronavirus at the WEM Center, 20 out of the 23 children have been placed in various homes of volunteer families and they are monitored daily by our re-integration staff," Sr. Anthonia told ACI Africa.

The main aim of the center is to help Ghana's street children get to school, and stay healthy, while staying connected with the parents and extended families of the children. The religious sister said that a lot of effort goes into establishing a frequent contact between the street survivors and their families.

"We believe that what God has created and bound together should not be separated. The connection to one's family is the most valuable foundation for becoming a successful and responsible member of society. Therefore, we are convinced of putting all our effort, patience and love into the reintegration process of our beneficiaries," she said.

Sr. Anthonia said that Christians have been endowed with the ability to perceive, appreciate and understand the situation of the vulnerable person, identify their needs, design needed services and facilitate the provision of requisite intervention to bring relief to them.

She appealed to parents and opinion leaders to jointly take steps to curb drug abuse, sexual promiscuity, teenage pregnancies, armed robbery, occultism and cyber fraud among the youth, especially those on the streets.

The work of her project, she said, begins with finding street children eager to go to school, and families willing to approve that.

"We search the streets of Ashaiman, Tema, Accra and its environs from the First Contact Place. Every year, we search for street children in the major cities in Greater Accra and those who are willing to be supported, along with their families, sign a contract for onward enrollment every September," she told ACI Africa correspondent.

She explained that the center's educational approach is divided into pre-school classes, formal education and informal education as well as moral and religious aspects of life.

"Pre-school" isn't for younger kids, as the term denotes in the West. At WEM, all new recruits are prepared for school life through intensive one-year pre-school classes.

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"The children who were once on the streets and not schooling will have to be prepared to enhance their reintegration into school life," the nun said, and added, "This demands patience, energy and love."

"In pre-school classes, we focus to improve their oral, literary and arithmetic skills through a structured curriculum, and in the later stage of their development in pre-classes, other subject areas are introduced."

There are 36 children at the collection center who are being prepared for school life. The collection point, in extreme cases, serves as a temporary shelter for beneficiaries, whose relatives or parents have not yet been located.

The Nigerian nun explained that at the collection center, the beneficiaries come on a daily basis to be taught mathematics, english and other subjects by the class teachers and volunteers.

"They are also educated on personal hygiene, social, religious and moral skills through classes and special programs," she added, and explained that the children have a period of morning devotion after their chores, before they go into their classes for lessons.

The classes, she said, are divided into three levels to meet the children's individual academic needs, as they undertake five hours of classes per day.

When they complete the one-year pre-class, they are enrolled into basic school after they have met the criteria, which include punctuality and discipline, ability to read and write, to calculate simple arithmetic, personal hygiene like bathing, washing, and neatness in dress, Sr. Anthonia said.

The children are admitted into Catholic schools because "we believe the environment and as well as the Christian routine will help grow their moral and religious values," said Sr. Anthonia.

As part of its humanitarian activities, Rays of Hope sponsors the former vulnerable children from the basic to the tertiary level of education, providing shelter, food, accommodation, and school fees.

Sr. Anthonia said that passion to restore dignity among young people who have made mistakes in life inspires her apostolate.

"The work at Rays of Hope for me is not just work but rather it is a ministry and a call. Ordinarily, when you look at it with human eyes, you might not want anything to do with it," she said.

"It is all about a call from God and a passion to make an impact in the young people's lives."

A version of this story was first published by ACI Africa, CNA's African news partner. It has been adapted by CNA.