Mother of 10 appeals for support

A forty-year-old single mother of 10 has made a passionate appeal to the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection, and corporate organisations to come to her aid to enable her to cater for her children, who are living under very difficult conditions.

Miss Patience Arthur, unemployed, who occasionally sells sachet water on the streets of Agona Swedru, has given birth to two children and four sets of twins, aged 14, 11, six and two. The eldest is 18 years.

She and the children, made up of four males and six females, are currently living with Patience’s 62-year-old mother, Janet Arthur, at Kwansakrom, near Agona Swedru, in a ramshackle two-room structure under deplorable conditions. 

Situation in the house

Due to the economic hardship confronting the family, some of the children have become truants and school drop-outs, since their mother is unable to provide their feeding fee and other educational needs.

The children cited their mother’s inability to provide them with their educational needs, as the reason for not being regular in school.

Life as single mother 

Miss Arthur, who looked visibly worried, told the Daily Graphic in an interview last Saturday that her life as a single mother was very challenging and frustrating, and indicated her preparedness to undertake small-scale income-generating ventures if she received financial support from philanthropists.

She said she did not receive support from the relatives of her first husband who died in 2003, and the family of her first husband, whom she had the first two children followed by the two sets of twins, failed to provide the necessary support to enable her to cater for the children.

According to her, her late husband was very supportive of the family and enrolled the children at Royal Academy Preparatory School, formerly at Gomoa Ekwamkrom.

She indicated that after the death of her husband, she was forced to leave Ekwamkrom to her mother’s residence at Kwansakrom since she was facing difficult times which also forced the children to abandon school.

Her resolve

She explained that she resolved not to marry again after the death of her first husband but had to change her decision since she could not solely provide the needs of the six children as a single parent.

Consequently, she married her second husband and gave birth to two sets of twins. Her husband, however started complaining about the number of children, saying that he could not take care of them together with the children of the first husband, and therefore deserted her.

She said, she had resolved to hand over some of the children to people who would be willing to care for them.

In an interview, her first son said his dream of becoming a police officer in future, looked bleak because of the current situation confronting them.