Meet the Clients Rukaya

Country: Ghana

At 18 years old, Rukaya was forced into a marriage, which eventually broke down leaving her struggling to provide for her family. She went to work as a kayayei in Accra, Ghana's capital city, but life as a kayayei was challenging. Opportunity International provided Rukaya with livelihood training and afterwards she was able to start her own business and better provide for her children.

At age 18 years old, Rukaya was forced into marriage. Rukaya had three children with her husband, but their relationships soon deteriorated. He was no longer interested in her and did not value her because he was also forced into the marriage. He decided to marry someone else.

After the break down of her marriage, Rukaya was struggling to feed her children. So, she took them to live with her mother and she travelled to Accra to earn a living as a kayayei (female head porter). 

In Accra, she faced further hardship. Life as a kayayei is hard; the hours are long, the load sometimes heavy, the pay is unsteady and they are often subject to abuse and harassment. They also often have to sleep in shop fronts and must pay for WASH facilities.

Despite all this, Rukaya felt life as a kayayei was better than being at home.

She then heard of Opportunity International’s livelihood training programme for women working as kayayei and wanted to take part. Despite getting very sick during the training and facing the challenges of a language barrier, she persevered. At the training, she learnt bead and soap making, how to manager her finances and family planning.

After she graduated, Rukaya started selling soap and beads to her local community back home. She was innovative with her new business venture; rather than use the expensive and largely unavailable palm oil, she chose to use shea butter in her soap. She was also able to use the profits to purchase a bicycle, meaning she could transport more product at a greater distance and sell to other places. 

She has now joined a local savings group where she can borrow money and purchase food from the group. Rukaya hopes to grow her business by having more goods to sell and selling the surrounding villages.

Opportunity has worked with over 100 kayayei like Rukaya, helping these vulnerable young women to find a better life. We hope to give 200 more kayayei the opportunity to break free from poverty.