Youth Alive Ghana

Helping to give children a future!

Youth Alive - Ghana (www.youthaliveghana.org)


Youth Alive, formally called the Tamale Street Childrens Project, was an ActionAid Ghana (AAG) initiative. The Tamale Street Childrens Project was established in 1995 by AAG with the aim to offering street children a second chance at normal growth and development. The project was designed, at its inception, to develop into a local NGO autonomous of ActionAid in the near future. Consequently, after six years of operation as an Action Aid project, the project finally registered as an autonomous local NGO in January 2002, under the name Youth Alive.

Youth Alive, as an organisation, now works with street and vulnerable children/youth in the poorest part of Ghana, ie the Northern, Upper East and Upper West Regions. Available statistics indicate that 9, 8 and 7 out of every ten people are below the poverty line in the Upper East, Upper West and Northern Regions respectively

Working definition A street child is any child who spends majority of his/her time outside the home (on the street) engaging in economic activities for his/her SURVIVAL

Vision: A Ghana without street children where every child can live a life of dignity and self worth.

Mission Youth Alive exists to alleviate the plight of street and vulnerable children/youth in Ghana through promoting their active participation and the building of relationships with them and in collaboration with their parents, guardians, local authorities, communities, central government, relevant NGOs and the general public.

www.youthaliveghana.org Objectives:

Our objectives are to:
* work for the prevention of streetism in Ghana, especially Northern Ghana
* reduce the vulnerability of street children in Ghana, especially Northern Ghana to enable them live a life of dignity
Specifically, Youth Alive seeks to

o provide formal and non formal education towards career opportunities for vulnerable children in Ghana, especially Northern Ghana
o facilitate the total re-integration of street children into the wider society
o build the capacity of parents of street/vulnerable children to enable them play their parental roles effectively
o transform the negative public perception about street children
o play an advocacy role to promote the rights of children in Ghana
Website www.youthaliveghana.org

You can make a real difference by Sponsoring a child at Youth Alive today!

Our biggest hindrance has been funding. We need your support to help these children complete their education or skills training. It would also help us reach out to the thousands of disadvantaged children/youth still on the street. You can help us in our goal by sponsoring a child.

If you sponsor a child you will support Youth Alive to:

* Get a child off the street.
* Put a smile on the face of a needy and desperate child
* Give a desperate child a future.
* We would serve you with our annual report (including financial report)
* We would serve you with updates on your child including pictures (if you are sponsoring a child)
* We would give you any other information (on request)

Our vision is A Ghana without street children, where all children have equal opportunities for self-worth and dignity�$�. This is achieved through the provision of formal education and skills training. We see the phenomenon of streetism not just as a social issue but a development issue and more importantly an issue of human (child) rights. As human beings street children/youth have a right to a life of dignity. Besides providing education skills training, health services, accommodation, food and clothing, we advocate for the recognition, protection and promotion of the rights of children in general, and street children/youth in particular.

Currently Youth Alive is supporting over 400 street and vulnerable children in school at various levels including university, training college, senior high school, junior high school, and primary school. Additionally we are supporting close to 200 street youth (mostly teenagers 15-19 years) to learn trades of their choice, eg carpentry, auto fitting, welding, straightening & spraying, dressmaking, hairdressing, local cloth (northern kente) weaving, sign writing, electrical engineering, etc.

We have graduated over 200 youth in the various trades, assisted them to start their own businesses and they are now training other street youth and community members. Some have been secured jobs from various employers. We have also produce a trained teacher (now teaching the a rural community), a police woman and an auto mechanic with the Ghana Armed Forces.

To learn more about sponsoring a child at Youth Alive please visit us at Youth Alive website: www.youthaliveghana.org