Who We Care For

Who we care for

Safe Haven’s heartbeat is primarily for street children and the less privileged. It is estimated that between 30’000 – 50’000 children live on the streets of Accra. These children have been through one tragic experience or the other like the death of their parents, abandonment by one parent or other family members, violence and abuse (sexual, physical and emotional), poverty or simply a hope for a better life in the big city. The street children survive their fate by doing things like cleaning the streets and markets, helping weak and disabled people, collecting and sorting out rubbish, carrying goods across the market, begging, and most unfortunately getting involved in petty crimes such as pick-pocketing and stealing food.

Not only do these children have to spend their time in a dangerous environment without support, supervision or protection, but also they are deprived of their right to an education. They are denied the opportunity to build a life or career for themselves and so the cycle continues. They are denied hope. Due to a lack of hygiene, diseases can spread easily. A lack of education and sexual abuse oftentimes cause unwanted pregnancies. Children, who are born to a life on the streets, face a very uncertain future. Society does not have a place for street children and governments barely provide any sort of support for them. The high unemployment in Ghana and employers preferring children, who are cheaper and easier to exploit than adults, often means that the children are the main earners for their families. There is a terrible stigma attached to being a “street” child. They are subject to abuse, seen as worthless and called names such as “criminals” and “market vultures”.

It is our care to change the narrative in that very area of society, bring hope and a future to children who were not given a change in the first place to start life well.