February 21th - a blog post from Kathy

Today the sights and sounds of Ghana come to you from the girls working and living on the streets of Accra. We weaved our way through narrow alleys, through laundry, trash, shower houses, food cooking on porches in the rain and mud fighting against the river human traffic of the morning, animals and trotro drivers...interviewing teenaged mothers who work and live near the railway station in a city... of nearly 3 million people. We met several of them at the local movie house - a small dark room with no windows filled with wood benches seating close to 45 people where girls will pay up to 20% of their daily wages to get out of the rain - they pay extra to bring their babies with them. Movies and TV play all day long offering an escape - Ghanaian soap operas were playing when we entered. Here is what some of the girls told us when asked about what they dream, "I am happy because I get to eat each day - but yesterday when the rain fell it would have been nice to have a place for me and my baby to sleep out of the rain", "I want to learn a skill so that I can provide for my child" and "I want to learn a trade so that I can achieve something and become someone." It was an honor to bear witness to these dreams.