NGO organises sex education for porters

The Society for Women and AIDS Africa (SWAA) Ghana, a non-governmental organisation, has organised an awareness programme on HIV and AIDS, gender base abuse and family planning for porters, popularly called Kayayei at Agbogbloshie market.

Mrs Aku Exornam Kevi Project Manager for SWAA Ghana said the reason for the programme was to educate the Kayayei in the Greater Accra Metropolis on the need to abstain from pre- marital sex and draw their attention to gender base abuse issues.

She said the organisation educate women on the dangers of sexually transmitted diseases especially HIV and AIDS and mobilise communities by strengthening their capacity to control, prevent and mitigate the impact of the pandemic.

Mrs Kevi said the programme has so far trained 75 peer educators in productive health, 12 in theatre performance and 18 to become gender base champions to fight the cause of abused victims at the market.

She said the programme would empower Kayayei to take concrete decisions regarding their future and change people’s perceptions on their plight as well as putting some of them back to school.

Mr Mohammed I. Salifu Head of Kayayei Association in Ghana thanked the organisers for introducing such an educative programme for the members and pray that it would be extended to other regions.

He said since the programme started it has helped to solve many gender base abuses among the Kayayei.

Mr Salifu said the Kayayei are now able to report abuse cases to the Domestic Violence Victim Support Unit (DOVVSU) of Ghana Police Service.

Miss Pascalina Aguuta one of the peer educators who spoke to the Ghana News Agency said prior to the training most of them were ignorant about the need to plan their families and report abuse cases to the law enforcement agencies.

She said the programme has created an avenue for Kayayei to be able to freely report cases of gender base abuse as well as know more about safe sex.

Source: GNA