Challenging Heights impacts on lives of women and children

One non-governmental organisation (NGO) that is focused on improving the lives of vulnerable and deprived women and children in some urban centres is Challenging Heights.

The NGO made significant strides in its work in 2015.

Challenging Heights seeks to promote youth and family empowerment and children’s rights to education and freedom from forced labour in Ghana.

Its vision is to see a world where the rights of every child to education and a family life are guaranteed.

Its mission is to promote youth and family empowerment and children’s rights to education and freedom from forced labour. 

Challenging Heights delivers social justice interventions to children, women and underserved communities in some coastal and farming communities.

Its area of work includes rescue, rehabilitation and reintegration of children who have been trafficked into the fishing communities, as well as creating community awareness of these issues in order to prevent the trafficking of children.

Challenging Heights was formed in 2003 and it has contributed to policy and awareness creation in public discourses on issues affecting women and children. It runs a rehabilitation shelter and a school for more than 700 children who are survivors of child trafficking or who are at risk of being trafficked.

Rescue and recovery
In October 2015, the organisation made it possible for parents to visit the Hovde House Rehabilitation Shelter in Winneba after the rescue of their children who had been in servitude for years on the Lake Volta.

On the Volta Lake, more than 20 boys and girls were saved from forced hazardous labour; some of them had not seen their families in years. Some parents could not recognise their children and the children could also not recognise their parents.

Before reintegrating the children into their families, the Challenging Heights team prepares parents with what to expect in terms of behaviour and attitudes and also continues to monitor the children once they have been reintegrated to ensure that they are in school.

Livelihoods
As part of its empowerment of the vulnerable in society, more than 70 women and some men in the Central Region learned how to make liquid and bar soap, which they can sell for a living.

Before they learned how to make the soaps, they were taken through a ‘Learn4Work Women Economic Empowerment Programme’ (WEEP) to learn how to manage their finances.

The NGO is also building a cold store in Winneba which will enable women to buy locally refrigerated fish and smoke them for the market, instead of travelling long distances to buy them.

It has already established the ‘Women in Social Enterprise’ (WISE) fish smoking site, also in Winneba, where the women smoke their fish.

Through the NGO, teenagers in the Winneba area have acquired computer skills such in Excel and CorelDraw through its Youth Empowerment Programme (YEP).

Advocacy
The Challenging Heights advocacy staff also held a child protection training for community leaders and the Ghana Private Road Transport Union (GPRTU). They learnt how to spot vulnerable children, what to do to stop it and how to notify authorities.

Writer's email: rebecca.quaicoe-duho@graphic.com.gh