“…he does not bring that sleeping place to the street; he brings the street back to the sleeping place"

I recently finished a brief paper on one of the incredible service organizations we visited while in Accra the final few days of the trip. The church-based non-government organization, Lifeline Project, founded in 1998 by the Assemblies of G-D Relief and Development Services of Ghana (AGREDS) in collaboration with United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), seeks to provide food, clothing, education and daily life services to young migrant girls, also referred to as “Kayaye” or Street Girls, who are living and working on the streets of Accra, Ghana (AGREDS.org, 2005). A typical days work for a streetgirl...photo copyright Alyssa Bernstein

As a reintegration program, the training center located in the slum of Agbogbloshie (in Accra) was opened in 2002 in order to better serve the population through outreach in the actual community in which street girls reside (Consortium for Street Children, 2003). This region of Accra is considered a main transit area for the central business market and attracts a large number of young people from the northern part of the country who are seeking what they hope is a better life in the city.

Selling gumballs through our bus window...they can barely see in but they still try.

So what exactly is a street girl, you may ask...there are so many definitions and classifications. In fact I had no idea that during the entire trip I saw street girls everywhere, even bought things from them-not realizing that they probably had no home to go to and that my 1 cedi would go back home to their family in the North. Lifeline caters to these girls, usually ages 14-18. They only take 100 girls every year and there are an estimated 20,000 street children, with almost 86% of the children between 7-15 years, just in Accra (Consortium for Street Children, 2003, p. 1). I can't show you many pictures from inside Lifeline becuase it is important to protect the privacy of these girls, but here is the sign...
The organization is based on four main educational departments or units; dress making, catering, batik dying, and hairdressing. There are professional instructors in charge of each department and a social worker who oversees them. The social workers are also responsible for the counseling units. Early Childhood Development centers are considered additional divisions of the program.
There are around 30 or more people on staff at Lifeline including the Early Childhood Development center, with around 270 children in the ECD center. These are the children of women who have to work on the streets all day and it was created to protect the health and safety of the children.

I strongly encourage you to read more about street children both in Ghana and other international cities. This is a global issue. Also, Amma Darko, a Ghanaian writer published a book in 2003 called Faceless. Its a novel about a street girl and does a great job describing and putting a spotlight on streetgirls as a social issue. I had the opportunity to read it while I was there-which was unique and helpful-let me know if you want to borrow my copy!

Here are a few Resources
Wikipedia

Consortium for Streetchildren

United Nations