Akwaaba – Welcome to our website!

Jireh Home for Orphans and Disabled is an organisation and was formed 2020. The organisation wants to advocate for orphans and street children in Ghana, who lost their parents, do not get an adequate care at home and were excluded by their parents or the society due to their disabilities and disablement.

In many African countries is the poverty still a huge problem and a part of the daily life. Many children are living under undeserving conditions on the streets. The street is for many children a home since their birth. The children must work. The child labour is widespread and normal. They cannot go to school to learn how to read, write and calculate. In future many of them will get trouble to find work to care for their families. The circle of poverty is endless. There is no end. Sure! There is an end!! 

Furthermore, the tolerance towards persons with disabilities in Ghana is very low, miserable. Many people have the imagination that god has given them the handicap to punish the parents. In addition, they do not want to get in touch with persons with disabilities because they are afraid of befalling the same. 

Our project shall confront this current situation in Ghana. We want to give the children a great childhood and a better future. We want to offer them a safe home, where they can feel free, can grow without worries and where we can educate them. We want to show them love, put a smile on their faces, take care of them like them could not experience in their lives yet.

It is not an easy way to establish an orphanage and a school. We are conscious of the challenge and hard work. We depend on help and support to follow our vision. We need you! The children need you! We do not work for us; we work for the children. The children are our future. If we invest in our children, we will invest in our future! 

Please have this in mind, every child must have the opportunity to live a happy life without fear and anxiety. Every child needs somebody who shows love and cares for him.

We are grateful for any help and support you can give us. Thank you very much in advance. 

Objectives for the project 

1.  The establishment of a safe home for the homeless, distressed and disabled orphans.
2. Providing an adequate accommodation and providing immediate needs and other timely needs of orphans like food, clothing, shelter and elementary education for the orphans, training them in the self-reliance skills that will be available at the centre.
3. Employing of workers, who are reliable and have a big heart for children.
4. The construction of a school. The school is for the orphans, but also children around the are can go to the school. 
5. Employing of teachers for the school. 
6. Look for serious new members for the project, who are willing to help and work with us to create a safe home for children. They should have experience with children, and be kind, lovely and caring.
7. Nurture sick and malnourished orphan children for better health and keep them well and strong through child survival program.

Our aim 

The aim of our project is to keep the children safe, to give them the opportunity living a better life without fear. We want to treat them well, like they have never experienced before. We will teach them, prepare them for life, so they will have a future with a great vision. We want to educate them well. We want to give them the opportunity to rely on us, to trust us, to feel comfortable at their new home. Being their role models, their family, they never had. They can feel free and create their own world. Just being a child, not a worker, not an outsider. They can be their selves. Having fun, laughing. They should not feel lonely and rejected anymore.

All this we will do with God’s help and love. 

Problem statement 

As we recognized that the children occupies a very unique and privileged position in the African society and that for the full harmonious development of their personality, the child should grow up in a family environment and in an atmosphere of happiness, love, guidance and understanding! From a child’s physical and mental development, they require care regarding physical, mental, moral and social development.

Rural parts of Ghana have got a large number of orphans than urban centres because people living rural areas are not sensitized on prevention methods of disabled. The age of orphans, however, is fairly consistent across party of the country. Surveys suggest that about 15% of orphans are 0-4 years old, 35% are 5-9 years old and 50% are 10-14 years old.

But despite of the efforts to improve the lives of the children, social indicators continue to show a decline in social and economic welfare of children. Also, low levels of education among the whole population of the community has also been attributed to the increasing number of orphan children as a result of disabled, poverty and poor health conditions. Worst of all, the child-headed household trend in Ghana is such that rural areas have 79,9%, of which 49,6% are male-headed and 30,3% are female-headed. The trend in urban areas is that of the 20% child-headed households, 10,5% are male-headed whereas 9,6% are female-headed (Ghana Bureau of Statistics-UBOS, 2000).

The complexity of the problem of child poverty in Ghana is large and growing. It cannot be ignored when designing national development and poverty reduction strategies. Unfortunately, children especially orphans continue to be marginalized irrespective of interventions where by assumptions are made that interventions that address adult and household needs are also good for all children, including boys and girls of school-going and non-school-going ages- this partly explains why child poverty is underrepresented in most studies on poverty in Ghana (Save the children UK, 2003).

We want to be frank and honest with you. We are standing at the beginning of our project. We know there is a long and hard way in front of us. We must plan and organise a lot. But we know we can do it, with you! We will do it for the children! We will give you reports, inform and keep up to date you about any new transformations. We need your assistance urgently in that acquisition of land and construction of the building takes place as soon as possible.

Thank you for being a part of our project!