The St. Monica Widows Association, an association of widows in and around Daffiama in the Daffiama-Bussie-Issa is calling for support in cash or kind to enable them live meaningful lives.
The women, who made the appeal at Daffiama when a philanthropist, Mr Thaddeus Sory, donated some food items to them, said they are going through many challenges to care for their children after the demise of their husbands.
The items included 100 bags of rice, 50 bags sugar and 50 cartons of cooking oil. That was the fifth year of the support to the association to enable them earns a living.
Some of the members of the widows association, numbering about 800, said they had learned trade but could not sustain the trade due to lack of funds.
According to them they could have used the proceeds from the trade as alternative source of livelihood aside the farming they do.
“We thank you and will continue to pray for you for this donation. But what we are appealing for is that we have learnt some trades but we don’t have the capital to do it.
“I am hairdresser, but after my husband died things became hard for me, now I don’t have the money to buy the hairdressing materials”, one of the widows lamented.
Mr Sory, who was a legal practitioner and Managing Director of Sory@law, said it was always refreshing to support the less privileged in society.
He said these were hard times and that those who were disadvantaged in society needed support to meet their challenges.
“We are all from this place and we have seen the plight of the women. It is usual for us to look outside and hear people suffering outside there, but within us we also have people who are suffering.
“Once we come from this place we always pray and hope that we come together and support those who are with us here also, show them love and humanity during these occasions”, Mr Sory explained.
Reverend Sister Gabriela Nonaah, the Founder of the St. Monica Widows Association, narrating the rationale for the formation of the association, said it was a divine call from God to do so.
She said Widows went through several challenges including lack of access to fertile farm land to farm and difficulty in earning a decent living.
Rev. Sister Nonaah explained that through the association, the widows are able to save monies and used them during emergency.
“I don’t have the money to give, but during our meetings, we have registration and each member deposits Ghc2.00 to Ghc3.00, so when she is sick we give her some money to go to the hospital. At the end of the year, we calculate all the savings of each woman and give it back to them to buy food stuff”, she explained.
Rev. Father James Nasaalbeteryeb, the Chaplain of the St. Monica Widows’ Association, commending Mr Sory for the support to the women, noted that in spite of the difficulties, he always made time to go home and support the widows.
He said the Reverend Sister could not help the women alone but needed the support of the general public to put smiles on the faces of the widows.
According to him, farming was the main occupation of the widows but that they could not engage in any meaningful farming due to lack of fertile lands, capital and increasing cost of production.