Celebrate with ActionAid
Stream for change
£100
could buy an emergency bundle gift, which could provide clean water, food and blankets to families who have lost everything.
£224
could provide a bed, mattress and bedding for temporary shelters in India for women and girls escaping violence.
£490
can buy a solar-powered pumping machine for five households in Cambodia, providing them with a dependable water source for farming.
£1400
could provide leadership training for 10 women in Ethiopia who are members of a savings and credit co-operative.
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Lydia, police detective helping tackle child marriage in Ghana
Ruth McDowall/ActionAid
Rescuing girls abducted for child marriage in Ghana
Lydia, 34, is a detective in Tumu, northern Ghana. Since 2010, she has been working with ActionAid to rescue girls who have been abducted into marriage and help return them to their families.
"I deal with one to three cases a week of child marriage," she says. “The youngest girl I have had to save was 15. When you find them they are miserable – not happy being with the man, especially if taken forcibly to the man’s place.
“On a normal day, people come to report cases like aggression and child marriage in my office. Whenever they come to report it, I go round to investigate the case. If it’s true, I go and bring the child back to the office and bring the child’s family and the complainant’s family to solve the case and get the child back to school.
"The problem is improving through the support of NGOs. ActionAid staff will go to villages and talk to people. Because of that, it has reduced and is no longer as high as it was. Now we are educating the parents and children too.”
Page updated 6 June 2024