Voices from the field

On the road to a career working with young people and then in overseas development, by 1977 the socially conscious young Duncan Trotter had signed up with Action in Distress (now ActionAid!), committing to pay £40 a year to support a child through primary school.

More than 4,000 miles away in Cheptulu village, Kenya, eight-year-old Eliakim Andaye Dedan was that child. He was living with his nine siblings, helping his parents herd cattle, forage in local forests for fruits and roots, and trap small animals for food. It sounds like an idyllic childhood – but under the surface things were tough. “As a small boy, life was very difficult for me and our family as a whole,” says Eliakim.

Of all his siblings, only Eliakim went to school. “I was selected [for sponsorship] from among others because my family was too poor to take a child to school,” he says. At the time, sponsorship paid not only for fees, but also for two new uniforms a year, including two white shirts and two blue shorts. “We really looked smart, even when we didn’t have shoes, socks or a sweater,” says Eliakim.

Eliakim also joined an ActionAid-run agriculture club. “We were given seeds for crops like onions, tomatoes or cabbages,” he recalls. “After harvest and sale, we’d pay some money back to the organisers, who’d then buy more farming inputs for other pupils. The cycle continued. Then we’d be promoted to another level and be given a goat to take care of until it gave birth. Another pupil would be given the young one. This was economic empowerment.”

Back in the UK, Duncan followed Eliakim’s progress through regular letters, and in 1988 decided to visit him in Kenya. “I went to meet him at school, and to meet his family. We talked about his school and his exams. “Eliakim wanted to be a lawyer if he could get the grades,” says Duncan. “But there weren’t enough textbooks. He gave me the reading list for his exams – his parents couldn’t afford them. Back in Nairobi I bought him about five textbooks and left him a big package with ActionAid. That’s what made the difference in him being able to graduate and why his peers didn’t – they had no books. “For me, it was about giving a kid a chance in education more than the individual relationship. With someone like Eliakim it has quite tangibly worked – he went on to secondary school and university, and then became a head teacher.” After Eliakim went to university, communication between he and Duncan came to a natural end. “For me it was great – he had gone from primary to secondary to uni – a whole education. He’s an ActionAid graduate. He’d taken full advantage of it, which was great.” Facebook friends

Recently the magic of Facebook brought the pair back together. “It was an absolute delight to get his request to be friends out of the blue,” says Duncan. “He felt that he’s where he is today because of his education. So now we’re testing the waters a bit – he’s invited me onto Skype, so sometime in the future we might be able to have a conversation.

I can offer him a sounding board and a different perspective. It’s an adult relationship now – maybe I can be an occasional mentor because I know the basics of development.” “ActionAid sponsorship was a godsend which has changed the life of many,” says Eliakim, who is now 42 and married to Florah. “I’m teaching history and Kiswahili in a secondary school. My wife teaches primary. I got a Bachelor of Education degree in 1994, and an Executive Masters in Leadership and Education Policies last year. “Being sponsored, especially at the primary school, was a special privilege which very few pupils managed to get. It meant I was assured of pursuing my education up to any level. This feeling gave me the impetus to study with a lot of determination, in order to avoid the situation others were living in due to lack of education. I grew up with a gigantic vendetta against ignorance.”  Child sponsorship has changed a bit since Duncan’s day – with the emphasis now on the whole community rather than an individual. While the link with the child is still there, sponsorship donations are used for the benefit of all, a far better way to make long-term change.  

ALL PHOTOS COURTESY OF ELIAKIM DEDAN.

ActionAid's new report reveals that hundreds of women in northern Ghana are accused of witchcraft and condemned to a life of extreme violence, harassment and isolation, banished from their homes and forced to live in 'witch' camps. The report describes six 'witch' camps’ in Northern Ghana, Gambaga, Kukuo, Gnani, Bonyase, Nabuli and Kpatinga.

These women below are just a few of the hundreds who have all been accused. These are their stories:

(front) lives in the Kukuo camp and was banished from her home and family almost 30 years ago. "They pointed a gun at me and said 'the bullet that will kill you is in this gun'," says Mariama Iddrisu, describing the day she was accused of witchcraft by her neighbours.  

Mercy, 25, lives in the Gambaga camp. She is nine months pregnant. According to local beliefs, the witch camps are 'safe places' where witchcraft cannot be carried out, some because they lie on sacred land, others because of the cleansing rituals new arrivals have to go through.

, 65, has been living in Kuko camp since 1981 when she was accused of pressing her cousin's chest until he died. "People don’t care about alleged witches. Once you are here you are forgotten."

, 70, dances in Kukuo camp. Witch camps are crammed with women who tell their own version of the same story – mob justice after accusations of suppressing someone’s breath, appearing in malevolent dreams, bewitching neighbours until they die.

ActionAid is helping to give these women voices. Women like Ayishetu, (right) who was cast out from her village after a neighbour’s daughter fell ill. She ended up in Gambaga camp, separated from her family for almost three years.

The ActionAid supported Go Home project has helped her live a normal life. "It wouldn’t have been possible for me to come home without the project," says Ayishetu. "Accusations of witchcraft don’t just go away, but Go Home helped persuade my community that the way they acted towards me was wrong."

The Go Home project has so far managed to reintegrate 250 women back into their communities. 

Kate recently photographed an amazing ActionAid project. Below she explains the story behind her favourite image.

This image was one of my favourites from my trip to Gaba Tulla (in Kenya) with ActionAid.

Gaba Tulla in Isiolo - is an area of Kenya severely affected by drought. The women pictured are attempting build a reservoir which will transform their community.

We had arrived early in the morning to see the community before it got too hot, and the sun got too bright. The activity was intense, and the energy and enthusiasm with which people were going about their work was infectious.

The bright colours of the clothes and scarves provided a vivid spectacle and I attempted to capture the energy, vibrance and motivation that I was seeing. This scene was in direct contrast to the drought stricken landscape we had seen the previous day, and  after the stories of drought and devastation that we had heard it was inspiring to see this surge of activity in such a landscape. Garba Tulla was a seven hour journey from Nairobi. It was situated about 40 kms from the main road down a very sandy track - so not an easily accessible area. Where we stayed was very spartan - a cold bucket of water was my shower in the evening. There is limited  electricity there so I had to go to a local shop every evening to use their generator and pay for fuel in order to charge my batteries. This could take up to two hours an evening because the generator wasn't that big!

>> See Kate's photos of the amazing project in Garba Tulla

When I took the photograph it was still quite early in the morning and so the sky hadn't yet become too bright.

I was very careful to expose the image to allow the blue of the sky to come through, I also wanted to maintain as much beautiful detail and colour as possible so I kept my aperture as narrow as possible - balanced that against a slightly slower shutter speed which gave me great depth of focus.

I'm reminded why I'm doing this when I publish images and people contact me with offers of help for the individuals concerned. Knowing that as photographers, images we take can touch on people's humanity.

My first field experiences were in Kosova, photographing the humanitarian effects of the conflict. I went on to write my first investigative report that uncovered the trafficking of young girls from Eastern Europe. 

It was the first time the issue of trafficking of women from Eastern Europe for sexual purposes was exposed. Since then I have traveled extensively documenting refugees and the effects of war and poverty on women and children.

I like combining editorial work for the UK and US media with photographic work for NGO'S. Working for NGO's gives one access and insight that many journalists don't have. 

>> See Kate's photos of the project in Garba Tulla

These girls have no intention of following in Victoria Pendleton’s footsteps, but to them a bicycle offers something even more important than a route to a gold medal – it’s the chance to get an education that will help them escape poverty.

In the Upper West region of Ghana, lots of girls like Josephine, Augustina, Cynthia and Pascalina don’t attend school because it is simply too far away. These girls all had to walk over 11 miles a day to get to school. No wonder they found attending everyday a struggle.

But missing out on school wasn’t just an inconvenience – a lack of education seriously damages the chances of girls to grow up free from poverty.

Thankfully, a basic bicycle can change all that. It may not be a super lightweight, highly engineered medal winning bike, but these sturdy machines will definitely power these girls to a bright future.