Our Desert Flower (euphamism for women targeted by the project in our semi-arid region) Project goes into its 4th year in one of the hardest and poorest and most dangerous parts of Patos. The area is dominated by drug abuse and the women attended by the project all have partners involved. The project at present attends 22 women and their children. Their problems are varied as they face domestic violence, health problems, low self-esteem and spiritual involvement with the realms of darkness.
The Desert Flower Project is teaching these women handicraft skills so as to give them the capacity to have an income through its sale as an alternative to drugs. The group now approaches the stage where the marketing of their handicraft will start to happen from 2018 onwards.
Parallel to this core aspect of income generation are: 1) A psychologist working on their self esteem etc. 2) Advocacy work by our project coordinator who is Marah Danielle (an experienced socialworker) teaching them about their rights as women etc. 3) Health with voluntary nurses from our church, teaching and giving them health guidance etc. 4) The children are given basic education + Bible lessons by church volunteers. 5) Evangelism in every session for the women.
Every session of the project everyone gets a meal. Many arrive not having ate that day. We bring them in to the Care Centre / Projects Centre paying for their bus tickets and to get them home again. We fund the materials used in the handicraft lessons.
This project has always been funded by EAB + Tearfund but the challenge now is for ACEV and EAB to stand alone and fund the project as Tearfund is apparently stopping support for it for reasons known only to them. We as a church feel we can't abandon ship with such a desperately needy community and so yesterday Liz, me and the project leader and social worker from our church, Marah Danielle, had a long meeting planning and praying for this year. We have another meeting of the full team tomorrow. So please pray and support this project. We believe in the God of miracles who will help us carry on and see people converted and transformed in the name of Jesus!
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