BA SUPPORTS STUDENTS

Putting smiles on the faces of vulnerable children has always been BRAVEAURORA’S priority. BRAVEAURORA has supported these kids for so many years now-- this year is not an exception. It’s yet again the beginning of the academic year and the vulnerable children require education materials. In view of this, BA’s beneficiaries in the Primary and Junior High schools of Guabuliga received exercise books, school uniforms, foot wears and pens as a support package to help in their education. This was presented to them by our social workers. The children beamed with smiles after taking the items. They express their heartfelt appreciation to the BA team and everyone making education possible for them.

Sensitisation Meeting in West Mamprusi District

In line with BA's objective to support institutionalized children enjoy appropriate parental and family care, together with the Department of Social Welfare, a sensitisation meeting was organised for former owners of orphanages in the West Mamprusi district.  The meeting aimed at building consensus and obtaining buy-in from stakeholders. Having worked with the vulnerable children, the former owners play a great role in supporting the BA and DSW teams to locate, assess and document post-reunification stories of the children. 

After successful assessments in five other districts in Northern Ghana, the team will commit two months to assessing over four hundred reintegrating children and families in the West Mamprusi district. Both BA and DSW staff are poised to kickoff the assessment after acquiring the backing of the former orphanage proprietors.

Pictures of the meeting are shared below:

Meeting with UNICEF

Child Protection Specialists from UNICEF paid a monitoring visit to BA's onsite team to discuss findings so far from the post-reunificafion assessment. They engaged the team on the findings from the field and the challenges encountered during the exercise. They also provided technical support to the team in order to strengthen the project. They had a two-day discussion with the team leader on sustainability and the wayforward. It was an illuminating experience for everyone involved. 

The team will begin assessing and documenting the lives of reunified children in the West Mamprusi District-- this will be succeeded by a review meeting with partners. Shots of the Unicef team and the BA team leader are below:

Preliminary Visit to Bunkpurugu

This weekend, the BA team paid a preliminary visit to Bunkpurugu in the Bunkpurugu-Yunyoo district of Northern Ghana to meet key stakeholders and set the stage for the assessment of reunited children in the District. The highly successful trip saw the team engage the District Community Development Officer and the CEO of Community Based Care for Orphans and Vulnerable Children.

The team had an understanding of the work of the various stakeholders in the reintegration of the children. The team also had the opportunity to visit the institution that previously housed the over 150 children and to talk to the proprietress. In the following weeks, the team will be visiting each of these children with their families to interact with them and assess their lives back in society. Watch this space for more updates...

       

Profiling visit to Sawla

The Reintegration Team of Braveaurora have in this week been engaged in the assessment and profiling of reunited children from the Sawla Children's Home. This is a major stride in our goal to adequately document and assess the lives of reunified children in Northern Ghana. Under the activity, contacts are made with the children and their caregivers to ascertain their general living conditions and feelings about the reunification. Twenty two children and adolescents are currently assessed by the team with support from Department of Social Welfare officers in the district. The exercise has taken the team to neighboring towns and communities where the children presently reside.

Sensitisation Workshop for Stakeholders

To set the ball rolling on Unicef's funded Social History and Post-reunification Stories of Children, BA in collaboration with the Department of Social Welfare organised a one-day sensitisation Workshop for stakeholders in child protection. The workshop brought together experts from Unicef, the Department of Social Welfare, NGOs and Residential Homes for Children. The event aimed at introducing participants to the project and learning and sharing best practices in reintegration. With the buy-in obtained from stakeholders during the programme, BA will now move forward to locate, assess and document the lives of children reunified by DSW to emerge with a document that will inform future reunifications. Snapshots of the session are shared below;

Welcome to Guabuliga

About three weeks ago I, Rici, arrived in Guabuliga. It took me about two weeks to get in touch with a lot of new people, to get to know the community norms and rules and I learned how to greet everyone in a proper way. Greeting is very important for  Ghanaians. Sometimes they visit each other just to greet or to ask after someone.

I'm here in Guabuliga to do my internship in social work. I first got in touch with Braveaurora through my University in Linz. I knew from the first moment that I wanted to spend some months in the beautiful village. Since I arrived, we started to implement a new project. Braveaurora established a partnership with UNICEF and is therefore responsible for whole northern Ghana to do a research on reintegrated children. Since the previous week we are testing questionnaires, prepared from UNICEF, to become acquainted with their work and to learn how to improve our collaboration. Next week a workshop will take place in Kumasi from another organisation called Challenging Heights. This organisation is already working in this area of well being and research on reintegrated children and their extended families. I'll get the chance to join this workshop and will keep you up to date about it next week.

Finally arrived in our compound 

In the field doing the research