BIG holds market campaign to preach positive parent-child relationships

Baquree Inspires Ghana (BIG), a youth-led not-for-profit organization, has held a market sensitization campaign to preach the need for positive relationships between parents and children.

The market campaign, which took place in the Wa Central Market saw members and volunteers of the BIG hold one-on-one interactions with parents, guardians, and children on the importance of cordial relationships between parents or guardians and their children.

Speaking at the sidelines of the campaign, Fathiyat Mohammed Numbo, the founder and Executive Director of the BIG movement said the campaign formed part of the second leg of the BIG’s flagship program dubbed “Safe Haven Initiative” which, among others, seeks to promote the welfare of children in their various homes.

“The whole idea behind this particular outreach is to create awareness of the
significance of positive parent-child relationships and also to address the root causes of young people’s inability to access reproductive information and services,” she explained.

She observed that poor relationships between parents and children mostly led children and young people to rely on their peers for reproductive health information which often puts them at risk of abuse and impaired reproductive health decisions.

“In households where young people do not have good relationships with their parents, they fall on their peers and other friends for a lot of information, especially reproductive health-related information which directly puts them at risk of harm,” she said.

She, thus, indicated that the market outreach aimed at strengthening family bonds, creating safe spaces for young people to grow, and establishing assistance that would facilitate young people’s access to reproductive health information and services.

She said the market outreach also served to respond to the growing concern that a lot of parents do not have any relationship with their kids aside from providing food and money to go to school as learned during the first leg of the Safe Haven Initiative which was held in 2023.

She emphasized that positive parent-child relationships were crucial in helping children express their opinions freely without fear of judgment or punishment, access the right reproductive health information and services, and make well-informed decisions that will cumulatively enhance their quality of life.

She hinted that BIG plans to set up a helpline in the future where young people can seek reproductive health information including counselling and therapy sessions.

Richard Yennunam Laarison, a volunteer with BIG observed that the impact of the outreach could go a long way to enhance the overall well-being of children and also create a healthy society for young people to thrive.

He called on parents to keep cordial relationships with their children to ensure they lead good lives.

He noted that the outreach offered the team an opportunity to learn from the
public and that the pieces of information gathered would be used in designing future engagements that address the concerns of both parents and children.

Some parents who interacted with the team during the outreach expressed concerns about the defiant nature of some of the children.

They expressed optimism that the strategies and information received
through the outreach would help in harmonizing relationships between them and their children.

The outreach was supported by the Bobmillar Foundation, Tondaar Ventures, Teen Talk Ghana, Beautiful Smiles Project, Yebetumi, and Hopes, Dreams and Ideas (HDI).