Rahab Uganda

In May 2011 Rianna’s Fund began its support for the Rahab Uganda project. With a safe home base a few kilometres from the city, the work begins in the inner-city slums where volunteer social workers making regular and hazardous visits to identify young girls caught up in sexual exploitation, with the express purpose of their rescue and rehabilitation.

This can be a long and precarious process, with girls failing to keep agreed meetings with Rahab workers, and the workers themselves under threat from hostile parties with a vested interest in the girls’ livelihood. Even the when the girls decide to accept the chance to change some are lured back by their own earning power.

Others, including some delightful teenagers Rianna’s Fund has met with, have grasped the opportunity to transform their lives: Fiona and Sophie proudly showed us the jewellery, basket-ware and paper bags they make and sell to visitors and local traders. These girls are two of the thirty girls the project has been able to re-integrate into formal education so far; both Fiona and Sophie recently left secondary school and would like to go on to study at University.

The Rahab home itself is central to the project and will be the focus of Rianna’s Fund support for the first year. Although up to half the 30 girls living there under the care of ‘Mother’ figure Maureen may be away at school during term-time, those who remain can participate in music and dance activities, as well as a programme of life skills training provided by a variety of volunteers. The aim is to restore the girls’ self-image and eventually enable them to be repatriated with family and successfully engage in regular jobs. Happily this has already happened in some cases. Meanwhile, Rianna’s Fund will continue to receive and report news of others who are at different stages of their rehabilitation.