Happy New Year, Brenda! We are so happy to be able to greet you in this new year, and wish you all the best for the coming months. We know that God will be with you as you try new things, have new adventures and expand your horizon.
We again, have many stories to tell, as there seems to be no rest for the work that we do. As we mentioned, we had a wonderful Christmas vacation at the centre, and the girls all enjoyed their New Year, and its celebrations.
Around the time of our one year anniversary, we prayed that the centre would get busier, and we would be able to help more girls within our community. Well, God seems to have answered our prayers. We are so busy, and so happy helping more and more girls in the community!!
We have many stories since our last update. We have had more rescues and have been busy following up on our girls within the community.
Martha is a girl referred to us from Food for the Hungry International. She is a seven year old that was found to be on the streets after her mother fell ill from HIV. FHI’s social workers referred her to us, as they were very afraid that she had been abused on the streets. She is staying at the centre with us for counselling and medical care, and investigation into their concerns.
Our newest rescue is one of physical abuse. Again, she was referred to us from one of our community partners who found out about her case, and realized that she needed to be assisted by shelter. She will be cared for with counselling, and medically. We will be following up with her case while working with the District Children’s Officer.
We are so pleased to be able to tell you that the girls who were being sheltered for Female Genital Mutiliation have been discharged back to their homes in the community. In order to ensure that we would be discharging the girls to a safe environment, we spoke with the Local Chief and Assistant Chief, and as well with the District Officer for Tigania. In this way we were able to ensure that the guardians would take the responsibility of protecting their children. We felt very strongly that since the parents said that they were against the performing of FGM on their children, that they should be held responsible for caring for them. The guardians agreed to this, and felt that with the support of governmental representatives they would be able to care for the girls. We felt that it was a big step for the centre to be able to ensure protection at home for girls who were being threatened to be circumcised.
We want to let you know about some new members of our team here at the centre. After much searching and interviewing, we have finally found a social worker for the centre. Her name is Lindah, and she joined us at the beginning of January. She will be facilitating all of the follow up needs of the girls within the community, as well as taking care of all new rescues, and their care during their time at the centre. It is a great feeling to know that we have someone on staff who will facilitate the needs of each of the girls, and be able to care for them. We also have a new house mother. As was discussed with you when you were here in October, we felt that though we were meeting many of the needs of the girls, we felt that we were lacking in the education of our rescue girls. Since girls stay at the centre for a prolonged period of time, sometimes up to six weeks, we realized that we need a teacher to help them continue in their studies. For this reason, we have hired Lucy, who is replacing Isabella as our house mother. Lucy is a trained teacher and will be assisting girls with their learning needs during their stay at BBHTC. Our final new addition is a tailoring instructor for our girls vocational training school. After a review of the last school year, it was decided that we were in need of an instructor who could not only instruct, but teach and empower girls to sustain themselves after schooling. We are very happy that Frida is on board with us.
Again, we hope you had a wonderful New Year. It is because of you that we are able to bring in a new year, still helping and caring for girls who have been abused within our society. We are so privileged to be doing this work, and we genuinely want to thank you for making this work possible.
MERCY CHIDI
