Lorraine Pascale sees how money raised by Comic Relief is creating a recipe for success in Ghana
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Comic Relief asked model turned celebrity chef Lorraine Pascale to visit Ghana to see how money raised by the charity is improving the lives of the people living there. Here, in her own words, she shares her moving experience and reveals how a bakery in Accra has transformed the fortunes of many...
When Comic Relief asked if I wanted to go to Africa to see how money raised through Red Nose Day has helped transform the lives of street children and struggling mums in Africa, I already had my suitcase mentally packed.
When I was modelling I went to Africa on photo shoots but nothing could have prepared me for the intensity of the poverty in Ghana.
Lost childhood: Lorraine Pascale meets children in Ghana who are forced to earn money hawking and carrying wares
Trying to earn money: Around 50,000 children live and work on the streets in Bolgatanga because they have no other choice
Around 50,000 street children are forced to earn money hawking and carrying wares, instead of going to school and leading a normal childhood.
After a long flight, I travelled north to the regional capital and major transit town of Bolgatanga. The area heavily relies on agriculture and in the dry arid season this means food is often short at home, so children go in search of work to help their families.
That evening we visit a busy lorry park on the outskirts of town to meet some of the children who live and work in this depressing and dangerous place. Most have run away from home to earn money carrying goods for lorry drivers, or selling water to thirsty travellers.
Homeless: Despite the dangers, many of the children have to sleep on the streets
At night they huddle together and sleep on the pavements, where they’re at risk of being sexually exploited and trafficked.
It’s dark, dusty and noisy and there’s an uncomfortable atmosphere. Some of the men wandering around are clearly high on drink or drugs and I feel that at any moment things could turn nasty.
I meet a girl called Mabel who tells me that until recently she used to sleep and work here, so she could earn £12 a week. She’s only 13 and says she used to get hassled for sex almost every night, while the older boys would try and take her money. Now she stays in a night shelter.
Mabel points to a patch of pavement on the edge of the lorry park and tells me that’s where she used to sleep. A group of 13 year old boys show me the wrecked car they call their bedroom.
As a mum I hate to think of these youngsters being in such a vulnerable situation. This is no place for children - but thank goodness there is an alternative.
Tomorrow I’ll visit a school run by an incredible charity called AfriKids, that uses money raised through Red Nose Day to transform the lives of some of the country’s poorest children.
Hope: Lorraine visited a school where money raised through Comic Relief is educating children on numerous subjects - including how to bake
After a good night’s sleep we travel to Grace Preparatory school, set in a poor rural area called Zuarungu. It certainly lives up to it’s slogan of ‘bringing big smiles to little faces'.
Eight hundred happy children in immaculate uniforms who were once destined to work down goldmines, or carry people’s luggage, now aspire to be doctors, nurses and lawyers.
AfriKids is a bit like having a foster parent. It protects and educates children who don’t always have parents around to love them. Having spent time in foster care when I was young, I know how important it is to have somewhere safe to stay when your parents aren’t able to look after you.
I meet Comfort, whose life has been pretty tough. At 16 she’s the same age as my daughter Ella but their lives couldn’t be more different.
When her father died, nine year old Comfort left her struggling family to find work so she could buy school books and a uniform. Terrified but determined, she lived and worked at the lorry depot for a whole year, so she could make £1.50 each day. When I ask her what life was like, she says, ‘It was hard. There was nowhere to sleep apart from the pavement. Bad men followed me at night and I was scared.’
Success: The class can finally put their cooking theory into practice thanks to an oven, desks and access to clean water that has been bought with money raised through Red Nose Day
Thanks to AfriKids she’s been reunited with her family and now has an education. She gives me a beautiful big smile and tells me that her dream is to become an accountant.
In the afternoon I join the home economics class and we start baking. Comfort’s class can finally put their cooking theory into practice thanks to an oven, desks and access to clean water that has been bought with money raised through Red Nose Day.
It’s great seeing their faces light up with excitement as the smell of their finished cakes fills the room. It’s been a brilliant day and a privilege to spend time with such inspirational teachers and children.
The next day I flew south to meet a group of formerly unemployed women, who now run a successful bakery co-operative.
As the sun starts to rise at 5am every morning a group of twenty five sleepy women start entering the gates of The Virtuous Women’s Bakery.
Set in a poor fishing area in Accra, Ghana’s capital city, this project is changing lives and helping women achieve their dreams.
Before coming here many of the women were jobless, or worked as street hawkers, earning under £2 each day. Now their income has risen five-fold.
Lorraine said: 'It's great seeing their faces light up with excitement as the smell of their finished cakes fills the room'
Auntie Sarah, 64, a retired midwife and Sister Hannah, 72, a baker, are at the heart of this empowering project.
Noticing the streets were awash with single mums and widows trying to make a pittance with their young children in tow and not in school they decided to do something to help.
They threw open the doors to Hannah’s bakery and offered to teach them how to bake bread and cakes which they sell to local people, while their children are safely looked after and educated.
The bakery has become so successful that the canopy of empty flour sacks under which the children were originally taught, has been replaced by a bright green wooden building, with colourful pictures of rainbows, numbers and letters on the walls.
Thanks to Red Nose Day money, the women use industrial ovens to bake over 100 loaves of bread and cakes every day, which they take out to sell along the beach and local streets at 2pm.
Empowering: Lorraine also visited a bakery supported by Comic Relief that is changing lives and helping women achieve their dreams
Single mother-of-three Veronica, 34, is one of the women to benefit from this great scheme. Beforehand she didn’t always have enough money to put food on the table. These days that’s something she doesn’t have to worry about.
While Veronica never had the chance of an education, she can now afford to send her children to school and pay for uniforms and books, as well as save some money for a rainy day.
It’s obvious that Auntie Sarah and Sister Hannah’s love of children extends far beyond the free clothes and nursery education they provide.
They are also adoptive parents to a shy but lovely 10 year old girl called Priscilla, who was brought to them when she was just six years old after her parents and grandmother died.
Previously doomed to an uneducated life with little opportunities, Priscilla like so many other women and girls here can thankfully look forward to a promising future.
Red Nose Day is back on Friday 15th March. For fundraising ideas including tips on how to hold your own bake sale go to rednoseday.com
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2292841/Comic-Relief-2013-Lorraine-Pascale-sees-money-raised-creating-recipe-success-Ghana.html#ixzz2Nkmf1uwr
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