บท 51: LIFE'S UNCERTAINTIES
Phyllis and her foundation,Dahlia had gained prominence in the society after two years because of the impact they were making in their beneficiaries lives. The Foundation had certified counsellors who gave counselling and emotional support to beneficiaries when they're first registered. The counselling and guidance unit of her foundation was able to counsel the beneficiaries to the extent that they let go of their pain and helped them to build their self esteem. After that they would help beneficiaries decide on the skill or course they would want to engage in so that the foundation gives them the needed support.
Most of the women decided to learn a craft because it wouldn't take many years for them to develop a skill in their desired craft and it would be easier for them to penetrate into the market since the rate of graduate unemployment was high in their country especially their region. They had trainings in crafts like crocheting, bakery and catering,basketry, sewing, hairdressing, makeup artistry, painting, beadmaking and event planning and decoration. Beneficiaries could choose one or more of these options depending on their interest and time. Dahlia Foundation had hired tutors to be educating their beneficiaries on financial management, branding and marketing strategies, customer services and personal human development so that they would be equipped to turn their skilled entrepreneurs who would survive in the market.
In a space of two years, the foundation had successfully supported and trained five women who had graduated and established themselves with the support of the foundation and that had promoted Dahlia Foundation to the extent that local businesses, individuals and organisations were given it support in addition to the foreign aid. Dahlia Foundation was therefore able to give scholarships to the wards of their needy beneficiaries to be educated. The foundation had a hostel which housed those who couldn't afford to pay rent. It had about one hundred and fifty beneficiaries in the space of two years and it was already making impact though it had it's challenges too. Some of the husbands or boyfriends of some of these women attacked the foundation and it's workers especially Phyllis because they thought they were the ones empowering their women to leave them. They had been to the police station and courts severally and at a point in time Phyllis wanted to even shut the foundation down but her husband, family and employees advised her not to. She had been tagged a home wrecker because of her women empowerment agenda.
One day, when she was in a meeting with the departmental heads of the foundation, she had a visit from a renowned doctor from Kumasi South Hospital so she had to be excused. The doctor came with two women, you could see that one of them had been physically abused because there were marks all over her body. The doctor told Phyllis that she was there because she wanted Phyllis to help those women because they needed the help and might end up either committing suicide or being murdered by their husbands. The doctor asked the women to share their ordeal with Phyllis so that she would know where to begin her assessment from.
"I am Alice Danso, thirty five years old and living together with my boyfriend. I am a food vendor at the High School Junction, Ahinsan. I live with my boyfriend whom I have supported through the university and is currently working with an oil and gas company. We have been together for eight years now and I have committed nine abortions for him because he said he wasn't financially stable to cater for a child or children at those times and besides he wanted to marry me before we have children else his family would disown him and his church would excommunicate him because they don't condone fornication. This man has been working for three years now and whenever I ask about his plans of marriage, he tells me to give him time. I am currently not working because he had been mercilessly beating me for about eighteen months now whenever I ask him about who he is talking to on his phone. I have been suspicious of him cheating on me but I didn't know whom he was cheating on me with until last month when he had a WhatsApp notification and I decided to read since the phone wasn't locked. I went through his chats and noticed that he was planning to settle down with someone I don't know. The notification that came was samples of his wedding invitation card being sent to him for selection. I verbally attacked him and he beat me to a pulp. If my neighbours hadn't rushed there I might have died. He never visited me in the hospital and when I was discharged I decided to go back to where we were staying but he had moved out because he's now married and living with that woman." Phyllis was angry and sad at the same time with tears flowing down her face while Alice was profusely crying. "I know you all might be thinking I am stupid to have stayed with him for this long but then I had already wasted my time and life on him. What could I do with my life if I had left him." The doctor consoled Alice until she calmed down and then requested the other woman to also talk.
I am also Akosua Agyapomaa, thirty two years and married. I have been married for five years and have a four year old daughter. My husband insisted that I quit my job to be a stay home mom so that I could take good care of our daughter. He mounted pressure on me to the extent that there was no peace home so some elders advised that i heed to his suggestion so that i would maintain my marriage, so I conceded. Last two years, my husband brought some documents to guarantee for him because he was going for a loan to build a house since he didn't feel comfortable living in my house. My father gave me a house before he died so that's where we were leaving. I honestly didn't read the documents because I was too tired and I also trusted him but two months ago, a lady served me an eviction notice and when I told her that was my own house, she should me the documents to the house and the house had been transferred to her name. I decided to call my husband but he never picked. I begged the lady to give me time to sort myself out which she agreed. I decided to make withdrawals from my bank account and when I went there, my husband had withdrawn every cedi from my account because the bank manager says i had given my husband sole custody of my account since he came with the documents i signed. I collapsed and was rushed to the hospital by the bank. I have also not set eyes on my husband again and all his phones have been disconnected. I went to where I knew him to be working and I was told that, they had never had him worked there before so I came back to the doctor for help and she brought me here. I am an only daughter and my parents died three years ago in a car crash. Whatever they left me with is now with my husband. Akosua couldn't even cry because she had cried enough. Phyllis hugged both of them and told them that everything would be fine with time. She gave them forms to fill for their registration to be beneficiaries of the Foundation and then later showed them to their rooms in the hostel.
She assigned counsellors to both of them and showed them around their facilities and who to go to for help whenever they needed it. She asked one of the workers to take Akosua to their school the next morning so that she would register her daughter for her to start schooling. The doctor together with the women thanked her and left her office. She wept in her office for a while as she pondered over their cases. "So couldn't Alice leave the guy after three abortions? Because that should tell her that he didn't love her. Did it not occur to her that, the man wouldn't marry her when she spent her money developing him while she wasn't developing herself? Which man would settle with a woman she had had nine abortions with? Well! Like she said, she thought she had wasted her life with him and decided to continue with him." For Akosua's issue it was dicey and could happen to anyone. So she kept asking herself in tears and confusion " how could men born of women, who sucked on women's breasts be this wicked to women? She just sat for a while over wine and just asked herself " how do we live with our men? How do you know their minds? And how do you even know how a man or woman would treat you in the end? Well sometimes, they show you red flags just that you would be blinded by love to see the colour of the flag though you see the flag being waved at you.
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