Breaking The Cycle of Spousal Abuse

The campaign focuses on educating the youth how to start a healthy marriage. Because marriage is beneficial to society, for it is the foundation of a family, which is the fundamental building block of the society.

Ghana has the highest rates of spousal abuse. Most women especially in the rural areas of Ghana are not aware of the possibility of a healthy marriage, nothing about abuse is taught in school and because of our traditions, most women too have come to believe and try to put up with psychological or physical abuse in their marriages.

I am a survivor of spousal abuse myself. I stayed with the abuser for ten years. This is long, but I was not aware of the abnormality of psychological abuse. I suffered the effects of abuse such as low self esteem, feeling of worthlessness and anger.

This is my story, but there are thousands of women who are either in an abusive marriage or are marrying abusers since they do not know how to identify an abuser beforehand.

On the part of society, it does not only affect our future leaders (children) in such relations, there is also low productivity at the work place since victims become frustrated and are not able to concentrate on work. Investments that could be used to improve our standard of living are being used to pay medical bills and other things for victims and their children.

I founded Bendoweh Foundation (BF) because of my personal experience and the terrible stories I was told by fellow survivors. We believe prevention is better than cure and it is easy and cheaper to prevent this issue than to respond. Therefore, BFs ultimate goal is to make sure the next lady does not end up in

Goal of This Campaign

The ultimate goal is to stop spousal abuse in Ghana and raise awareness about the possibility of healthy marriages.

This specific campaign focuses on educating youth, since prevention is always better than cure .Firstly I focus on educating high school girls. Secondly I focus on a selected group of girls who become ambassadors to educate their own community

Who is Involved?

High school girls: We educate them and ask them to sign up for girls club. They are being trained to become ambassadors to reach and educate their community.

Donors: The Bendoweh Foundation collects money in order to train the ambassadors and facilitate these girls with learning materials and keep them engaged.

Campaign Actions

1. Educating 1000 high school girls : June-Aug 2017

• Reach out to 6 High schools and educate 1000 girls in total
• Form 6 girls clubs /youth groups of 30 each to create 180 ambassadors
• Engage and educate 180 ambassadors through Face book page
• Engage them through weekly radio shows

2. Reaching out to 1800 people in the rural communities: Sept-Dec 2017

• Train youth groups to be ambassadors
• 180 ambassadors educate their communities. If an ambassador educates at least ten people so that 1800 people will be educated.

a. Ambassadors will also be sharing the Face book page and website with friends and friends of friends and also make contributions in a way of sharing stories on the website and create blogs with stories and solutions.

b. Ambassadors are encouraged to use hash tags to send this message and direct people to our social media channels.

c. Engage them through weekly radio shows

• Reach out to funders on Crowd funding websites to raise 6000 dollars
• Engage (potential and existing) funders using Face book page by sharing(video)updates, information, compelling stories

Why Will People Participate in this Campaign?

By joining our youth groups the girls will have more chance to have a healthy marriage of their own, since they have come to know everything there is to know about how to create healthy relationships. Besides that they are able to make a significant change in their communities.

The funders have the possibility to build towards a healthier society. They are constantly kept up to date with the effects of their donations.

With collective effort, we can break the cycle of this devastating act and save the next potential victim. I know we can make a difference so that our children can have marriages that will improve their lives and their children’s lives instead of ruining it.