EN – Mother Cares Family
What has originally been founded as an orphanage by Joyce Obeng, grew out to be the heart and family of the community. Mother Cares Family consists four major projects so far.
Mother Cares Orphanage and Welfare Home
Joyce founded the orphanage in 2005. When the amount of children grew larger, she wanted to revise the system. This happened in collaboration with Social Welfare, a govermental service that handles housing children in a good home. For example, the needs of each child will be examined and all alternatives (family, fostering or adoption) will be considered.
The orpahange aims for independency and self-development by providing education and talent development. Besides school, they offer dance and music classes. In order to reach the aims is financial support needed.
At this day, approximately fifty children are living in the orphanage and ten children are going to a boarding school nearby.
Mother Cares Educational Complex
MCEC is founded because there was no accessible school nearby the poor community of Swedru.
Joyce started to take in toddlers, but it turned out that older children wanted to go to school either. Besides the needs within the community, it was also expensive to provide good eductation for the children from the orphanage. This led to the idea of starting an educational complex. The complex grew larger over the years and a Secondary School has been added to the grounds. The Secondary School runs up to the third grade. The Educational Complex is on the same ground as the orphanage and they use each other’s services. For example, when a child is ill, they can take a rest in the oprhanage. When children from the orphanage want to study during the weekend, they can make use of the classrooms.
A lot of parents are not able to pay for schoolfees. Joyce made an arrangement of offering a discount based on their income. They can either pay for lunch or a part of the schoolfee. The youngest child within a family can go to school for free when schoolfee is being paid for the eldest child. These arrangements make sure that the school earns enough money to keep it up and running.
Mother Cares Girl Child Foundation
This project is founded by Joyce in her birthplace Gomoa Benso. This project is aiming for young women who are still living with their parents. Teen pregnancies, prostitution, drugs- and alcohol abuse are examples of high risk issues that they are facing. Assemblies are taking place in the local church. Guest speakers are offering information to these girls and their parents. Parents are being encouraged to stimulate and support their daughter’s education and to give them time and space to learn, instead of making them work right after school.
GCF offers the girls information about men, sex, personal hygiene, skills to study and to treat themselves and their environment with respect.
Mother Cares Outreach
Mother Cares Outreach supports families and individuals by providing materials, like clothing, but also coaching sessions. Therewith, MCO are lifting these people’s burdens and try to encourage them to self-development. These sessions are also being used to talk about the importance of personal hygiene and education.