Christian Children’s Fund of Canada to curb Kayayei menace

The Christian Children’s Fund of Canada (CCFC), an international non-governmental organisation (NGO) has intensified its national advocacy programme to help curb the migration of young girls from the north to the ‘big cities’ to work as female porters, popularly known as "Kayayei".

The Country Director of the CCFC, Mrs Gifty Akosua Baka, who announced this, said the "Kayayei" menace did not only deny girls their basic rights such as education but also affected their health and wellbeing.

"We are going to strengthen our collaboration with traditional and religious leaders and other relevant governmental agencies such as the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection, as well as engage parents and the children to help eliminate this menace which was impacting negatively on the growth and development of girls in the country," she stated.

Expansion programme

Mrs Baka was speaking at an annual retreat for staff members of CCFC and partners in Tamale to celebrate the achievements of the organisation last year.

The retreat was on the theme, "Child Protection: Our Collective Responsibility".

To ensure the success of the programme, she said the CCFC would expand its child protection activities to cover 36 more communities across the Northern Region to impact the lives of children.

The expansion, she said, would begin this month, which would see CCFC build schools, water and sanitation facilities, Information and Communications Technology centres, among others, to help address some of the development challenges faced by, especially rural children.

Mrs Baka mentioned some of the communities that were to benefit from classroom blocks under its expansion programme as  Zagbang, Zang and Zugu in the Yendi Municipality to ensure the education of children in those communities.

Staff commended

She said the expansion programme meant that CCFC would graduate 29 other communities that it had supported for the past 17 years.

The Country Director of the  CCFC said those 29 communities had benefited from a lot of projects and programmes, which should enable them to stand on their feet.

Mrs Baka commended staff and partners of CCFC for their dedication to duty, that had led to a lot of successes within the past years and called for teamwork to achieve more success.

The Head Pastor of the Calvary Baptist Church in Tamale, Reverend Elijah Aduah, who was the guest speaker, called for more education for members of the public to respect the rights of children and avoid injustices against them.