My name is Yakubu Salma Mamaawey, I am from Tamale and a
volunteer working for International Service in Ghana, precisely in the Northern
Region. When I was selected to be part of the ICS RAINS project I was very
happy because I knew that my passion to help the youth actualise their dreams
will come to past.
The Safe Choices project is aimed at creating awareness on
issues that has to do with sexual health and also on kayayei, through community
and radio sensitisation. We also include community members who voluntarily work
as peer educators.
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| Our First Community Sensitisation in Nanton Kurugu |
When people come together to achieve a particular goal,
their differences becomes invisible and their willingness, similarities and
passion stands out. This is what our team stands for. Working with the UK
volunteers has shown me the importance of the concept of diversity to be able
to successfully work together in a cross-cultural context.
My team members from the UK are very friendly and
accommodating, they are always willing to help and share ideas that will bring
positive results concerning our project. Their interest to learn the Ghanaian
culture as well makes them lovely and irresistible to work with.
Currently the Safe Choices team have worked hard to create a
sexual health manual, which covers a lot of sensitive health topics that are
essential to our day-to-day lives. Some of these topics include: teenage
pregnancy, the menstrual cycle, masturbation, infertility in both men and
women, STIs and a lot more. The manual is to help our readers and the
communities that we work with have more knowledge and control over their sexual
lifestyles. By addressing these subjects, we hope to provide long-lasting
support to young people, in order to keep them in school so that they can
achieve their potentials and become great people in future.
We are seriously working on creating the awareness on
kayayei, and how it endangers the lives of young girls who leave their
communities to the capital cities in search of money. Our first community
sensitisation took place in Nanton-Kurugu, and we look forward to doing more in our other communities, Zokuga and Langa.
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| Abigail and I during the kayayei role play section of the sensitisation |
