By Joan Townsend | Executive Director, Retrak America
For over 20 years, Retrak has been working to return street children to families. What you may not know is that we also work to prevent children from going to the streets in the first place. In the Hossana region of Ethiopia, Retrak is working to reduce the “push factors” that drive children to the streets by helping local women become financially and socially empowered to become better parents.
When we asked our project workers to single out a case study to help illustrate the success of our Hossana project, one woman came to mind - Elana. Elana has seven daughters, two sons and an elderly husband who refuses to work. To make ends meet Elana sold food at the local market. Life was tough and looking after nine young children soon began to take its toll.
However, all this changed when Elana joined Retrak’s Self Help Group, one of six in the area. Within a month she was able to save 345 Birr (around $16) and take out a loan from the group, allowing her to scale up her small trade. At the Self Help Group meetings, Elana also received training on parenting skills, including better ways of dealing with her children’s misbehavior. It was during one of these sessions that Elana stood up and thanked Retrak for their intervention, “The way I used to raise my children is very different to what is being taught here. I used to punish my children by hitting them very hard…cursing and insulting them relentlessly”.
She then told the group how this behavior affected her 14-year-old daughter. One day her daughter had made a mistake preparing food for the market. She was so afraid of the punishment and the curse that would come from her mother that she left home. With each passing day she feared greater retribution. Things reached a tipping point when Elana found out that her daughter had become pregnant at the age of 14. Allowing her temper to boil over, Elana chased her daughter through the neighborhood with an axe.
She confessed that she had contributed to the problem, “My children are not the ones who made the mistake. It was me who made the mistake. Had it been I continued down this path, all my children may have left home and gone to the street.” She then left the meeting to call her daughter and ask her to come back home.
The following week her daughter returned to the family home. Currently Elana is taking greater steps to create a loving and safe environment for her children and future grandchild. Her daughter also testifies to this change in behavior, “My mother has changed a lot. She still gets annoyed but now she calms down much quicker. She has stopped hitting us and is encouraging us to think about our futures. Because of this I have also decided to continue my education next year.”
Elana is just one of many women (and their children) who have benefitted from Retrak's Self Help Group program. Thank you for the support you provide that enables us to work with this community in Ethiopia.
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By Joan Townsend | Executive Director, Retrak America
By Joan Townsend | Executive Director, Retrak America
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