Project History

The organisation “Help for Witch-hunt Victims” (“Hilfe für Hexenjagdflüchtlinge”) was founded in 2009 by Felix Riedel and Di Luong. In the course of his field-research on witch-hunts in Ghana, Felix Riedel traced eight ghettos, all in extremely desperate condition. Scores of the women suffered from starvation, hard labour and diseases.
Di Luong was working in Ghana and conducted interviews in the Gambaga-Ghetto. All initial attempts to convince NGOs and GOs to intervene were met with ignorance. Therefore the last option was to start our own NGO focussing on witch-hunt victims.
Simon Ngota, working in the Gambaga ghetto until 2009, faced discrimination caused by ethnic unrest between Mamprusi and Kusase. With our first installments we enabled Simon Ngota and his family to resettle in Gushiegu. The conditions for a new project were just right: all camps were in reach and the situation of the women was extremely dire. In Gambaga, the former “Gambaga-Outcast Home Project” was replaced by another organisation. 
Many donations enabled us, to realize the project. Paul Rigter and friends from the netherlands were the first to assist us with 1500 Euro for tools, seeds and fertilizer.  
2,5 ha of land were purchased for 2000 Euro beneath the Gushiegu ghetto.
Ulrich Riedel has donated 1000 Euro for the land purchase and aditionally contributed half of the monthly budget so far.  
Sabine von der Tann helped us with a large single donation of 5000 Euro to reach our second year.
The Catholic Church of Gushiegu had a borehole drilled beneath the ghetto, which made potable water available througout the year and eradicated a lot of waterborn diseases.
The Danish organisation “Seniors without Borders” has successfully applied for a second Budget from the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
 
Wir are looking forward to further alliances.
Our project has so far resettled 20 individuals, enrolled about 20 children in school and registered 200 women for the National Health Insurance Scheme. It assisted newcomers and convinced many women to seek treatment in the Gushiegu hospital.

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