Weija, is an old community located in the Ga State of the Greater Accra region of Ghana, with a population of about ten thousand (10,000.00) people. It is twenty (20) miles from the city center of Accra, the capital of Ghana. Weija, sits along the banks of the Densu River which runs between two hills and empties into the Gulf of Guinea.
For centuries the main occupation of the people had been farming and cultivating the land for Maize, cassava and vegetables. The staple food for this community is Kenkey and fried fish.
In the early sixties, after independence, the city of Accra began to grow. Many people were trooping from the surrounding rural areas into the city for employment, shopping, and to set up residence. To accommodate the growth and the subsequent water shortages, the government constructed a dam across the Densu river. This created a large lake on the downside of the dam, in the township of Weija. The lake covered about two thirds (2/3) of the land previously used for farming by the people in this community. The people of Weija are now deprived of their primary economic and food sources.
Without land to farm, the people in the area became poor and unable to feed themselves. To survive, they were forced to leave their homes in the early hours of the day to go to the city of Accra to do menial labor.
For the first time, parents were forced to leave their children from the early morning to late evening while they made the 20 mile round-trip walk or bus ride into Accra for work. Unaccustomed to leaving the village for any reason, parents left, and continue to leave their children (as young as 1 years old) unattended while they go to work.
Some parents, unable to go into the city engage themselves in the manual stone quarry business in the local vicinity. Using simple tools such as pickaxes, cutlasses, shovels, hoes, head pans, and hammers they work 12 hours a day cracking rocks into chippings that are then sold to the real estate developers. Because of the limited demand for this product they may earn up to $50.00 per month. Again, these parents must leave their children unattended while they work in the quarry.
With barely enough money to feed and house their families, most people cannot afford to send their children to the city school in Accra. Illiteracy is high in the region and very little value is placed on education. There is only one Charity School in the area that takes care of orphans.
In the absence of supervision from parents, neighbors, older family members or fellow villagers, children, ages one to early adolescence, wander about the village aimlessly.
