Students in the creative writing class seem to say. They have displayed ingenuity and produced beautiful works so far. Among them are; Give Me My Voice, The Womb I Slept, I Should Had Trusted My Instinct, Sorrow, Death, Nneka, Judgement Day, Things Happen Unknowingly, My Future, The Path of Marriage. We can expect an anthology from them right? We hope to share some of their works here for you.
A Teen Mom’s Tale
I was drawn by a child’s cry and a mother’s harsh, voilent shout at her innocent baby. This threw a spanner in the works for me as my Easter celebrations were deeply dented.. A 14 year old Mother, a Junior high form 2 girl who is supposed to be in school is here so frustrated. She wished to be part of her colleagues performing at the durbar grounds for the Easter celebration. Did she really make this mistake all by herself? She openly told me the perpetrator accepted the pregnancy but had completely abandoned them to their fate. The worst part of it all, she said the father of the baby is a wee (marijuana) dealer and smoker. This epitomises the extent of destruction teenage pregnancy and drug abuse are inflicting on the future of young people in rural Ghana. Our task is even more arduous and we will do all we can to create opportunities for change.
Happy Mother’s Day
When on a MOTHERS’ DAY, in your community, you enthusiastically wish young women gathered a Happy Mothers day, and you could barely hear a thank you from one or two, how would you feel? I went like, are you not happy to be mothers? “No”, they said, why? “because we are not supposed to be mothers at this age”, this truth they accepted a bit too late. Nneka Youth Foundation brought together teenmothers on Mothers day to celebrate with them, share experiences with them and talk to them to give themselves a second chance. “You can rise up and rebuild your lives”, we told them. Some said they are willing to go back to school but have no one to take care of their babies. The most painful truth observed yesterday was that none of the girls and their babies are being supported by the men who impregnated them. Two of them, a 24 year old with 4 children and a 23 year old with 3, have multiple fathers to their children. Our AIM is to break or at least, reduce this menace, this cycle of abject poverty, children having children. We have a more difficult job at hand than can be imagined. We soldier on!
The Fight Against Teenage Pregnancy
As much as this menace called teenage pregnancy would not go away, we would also not rest on our oars. Mama Klebetesi III, the Queenmother of Mafi Sasekpe, leads some other queenmothers to fight against teenage pregnancy. Nneka Youth Foundation shares in this vision and would go all out to colaborate with them in this fight. Out of the 75 young women trained earlier in the Sasekpe community, 28 of them were supported to start their own businesses. The queen mother was full of gratitude to Nneka Youth Foundation as we handed the tools to her on behalf of the girls.
ICT Quiz
Nneka Youth Foundation continues to build bridges of opportunity for young people in rural Ghana, creating avenues for practical engagement. Our maiden ICT awareness and practical quiz took place at the Nneka Youth Development Centre on the 10th of April. 11 schools from the Afadzato south district who are beneficiaries of our ICT engagement project took active part in the quiz which entailed both theory and practicals. Ve Golokuati E.P. Jnr. High School came up trumps, but we were particularly intrigued by the level of competence displayed by participants. We however had only 5 female participants out of 33, which heightens our task to get more females involved in ICT and technology going forward.We look to make this a core of our transformation agenda.
