NGO launches ‘Sponsor Kayayei to School’ programme
The Super Lock Technologies Limited (STL), a manufacturing company in Accra, is partnering the Pamela Bridgewater Project to promote the education of young female porters mostly found in the cities.
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Known as “Sponsor Kayayei to School programme,” the programme is meant to support 2,000 children to go to school by 2016.
The STL, through its sister-printing company in Tema, will produce 2,000 calenders for the programme.
The calender features prominent stop kayayei campaigners, namely, former presidents JJ Rawlings and J.A. Kufuor, the Chief Justice, Her Ladyship Mrs Georgina Theodora Wood, the UK High Commissioner, Mr Peter Jones, the Israeli Ambassador to Ghana, Madam Sharon Bar-li, the South African High Commissioner to Ghana, Madame Jeanette Ndlovu, Dr Tony Aubynn, the Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Chamber of Mines and others.
Speaking at the launch of the programme in Accra, the Financial Controller of STL, Mr Sharon Fisher, called on the government and corporate bodies to support the education of needy children, including the kayayei.
The Communications Director of the Pamela Bridgewater, Mr Bruce Misbahu Bulmuo, said the programme was meant to support 2000 children to go to school by 2016 and appealed to institutions, corporate bodies and philanthropists, to support the programme.
In a related development, the family of Hassana Abdullai, a kayayoo, who was crushed to death at Okaishie in Accra last year December 12, 2013, has expressed gratitude to the Accra Metropolitan Chief Executive, Mr Alfred Okoe Vanderpujie, for his humanitarian gesture during the burial of their deceased relative.
Abdullia, who was operating at Okaishie, was crushed to death by a DAF articulated truck, when she was trapped by a metallic hook at the back of the vehicle and fell under the it.
The Pamela Bridgewater, a voluntary organisation concerned with the welfare of ‘kayayei’, contacted Mr Vanderpuie, who, through the AMA Chief Medical Officer, Dr Anim Boateng, supported the family to provide the deceased with a befitting burial in line with the Muslim tradition.
The Project Director of the Pamela Bridgewater Project, Mr Yahaya Alhassan, said like every mother’s dream, the wish of the late Hassana was to ensure the education of her daughter, Fadila Maltiti Abdul-Basit and indicated that the girl who turned four in July this year, was now in school at the Gbullung D. A primary school in the northern region of Ghana, under the project’s ‘sponsor kayayei to school campaign’.
Mr Alhassan, who is also the founder of Kunata Voluntary Organisation that operates the Pamela Bridgewater Project, thanked the Graphic Communications Group Limited for its support to the organisation in championing the campaign to address the ‘kayayei’ phenomenon and revealed the launch of the ‘Peter Jones Award’ to honour media houses and journalists who championed the cause of the needy girls.