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Ghana-based Order of Nuns in a Partnership to Support “women accused of witchcraft”

Sr. Monica Yahaya receives a cheque from BasicNeeds-Ghana Executive Director, Pater Badimak Yaro.

A Ghana-based Religious Order of nuns has realized a partnership with a local advocacy entity with a view to reaching out to ostracized women accused of practicing witchcraft.

The partnership brings together Anawim Missionary Sisters who run five camps housing the ostracized women in the northern part of the country and BasicNeeds-Ghana, “a mental health advocacy organization that has the sole purpose of ensuring that people with mental illness and epilepsy are able to access mental health treatment and live and work within their communities.”

BasicNeeds-Ghana has availed to the nuns some Ghc35,000.00 (US$6,000.00) and a motorcycle, the leadership of the Tamale-based organization has reported.

“The funds are meant for ploughing a field that the alleged witches can cultivate for their own use and secure a tricycle and some fuel to support their farming activities whereas the motorbike is to enable the sisters to go on outreach,” the Executive Director of BasicNeeds-Ghana, Peter Badimak Yaro has been quoted as saying in a Tuesday, June 23 report.

In the report, Mr. Yaro notes that the stigma, indignity, and shame these alleged witches go through and how they are forced to live may persist even longer and affect their mental health.

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He expresses his appreciation for the apostolate of the nuns in taking care of the ostracized women saying, “For most of these alleged witches, the camps are a safe haven where they can be protected from the anger of the communities they come from.”

“It is for this reason that BasicNeeds-Ghana took an interest in supporting the Anawim Missionary Sisters to help these women to secure their food security,” he says.

Sr. Monica Yahaya, who received the donation on behalf of the Superior General thanked the leadership of BasicNeeds-Ghana for the gesture of kindness towards their ministry, describing the donation as the “largest the Anawim Missionary Sisters had ever received in Ghana from any person or organization to support their work.”

“We rely on divine providence and the contributions from the lay faithful of the Catholic Church of the Yendi Diocese, our father – the Bishop of the Yendi Diocese, and other benevolent individuals outside the Yendi Diocese, particularly in Tamale,” Sr. Monica disclosed.

Invited to Ghana in 2012 by the Bishop Vincent Sowah Boi-Nai of Ghana’s Yendi Diocese, the Anawim Missionary Sisters, also called Missionary Sisters of the Poorest of the Poor, live their apostolate among the women in the camps located in five townships in the northern part of the country, namely Kpatinga, Gushegu, Nabuli, N'gani and Kukuo.

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Members of the Nigerian-founded Religious Order reach out to “up to 80 orphaned children, 30 mentally and physically disabled, and 10-15 pregnant young girls at any time through social programs in Abuja and Kaduna, Nigeria and Yendi, Ghana,” they have reported on their Hope for West Africa Foundation webpage.

They also provide “education and youth programming to over 400 local children through the Anawim School and outreach programs in Nigeria” as well as “medical care, food, clothing, and adult skills education to hundreds of downtrodden, ill, and impoverished individuals both within and outside of their walls.”