Ellilta-Women at Risk started out with a focus on supporting women who wished to exit prostitution, and that is still a key focus of its work. Each year, approximately 120 women enrol on the rehabilitation course run by Ellilta. It takes 9-12 months in total, and there is a rolling cycle so that two programmes run per year, with 60 women per cycle. The programme is run across four sites in Ethiopia, so that there is an average of 15 women per programme at any one site, enabling really strong, personalised support to be given.
Ellilta also provides intervention work for the children of the women on the rehabilitation programme, and this year there are 333 children across all the sites.
But it’s flagship programme is the rehabilitation programme. There are different components to the programme, including counselling, discipleship, life skills, and Talent Search. One of the main reasons that the women entered into street sex work in the first place was the need to earn money, due to living in conditions of poverty. So, unless they are given skills to earn money in a different way, it is very hard for the ladies to truly break free from the street work.
Talent Search is the means by which the women can try out a number of different employment options and see which one best suits their talents and skill base. From this they can then get in-depth training so that by the time the programme ends they are sufficiently skilled to be able to access employment, and as a result break free from street work once and for all.
