Day One Complete

First day is complete. Today I found out that I will be working in Senya, one of three coastal fishing villages where Patriots Ghana sponsors child labour survivors. After meeting with the project coordinator at the office, a small group of us got on a Tro-tro (a group taxi) to travel to Senya. Senya is a source for many victims of trafficking and child labour. Many children are trafficked from Senya, either exploited in the village itself or “groomed” before working in nearby villages or on Lake Volta (where child labour is the worst). Poverty is very visible and leads to the exploitation of the children. Fishing is the only source of income in the town. Job choices are fishermen, who work on small boat, fish mongers, who are women who buy the fish from the fisherman, and the fish salesmen. Due to a lack of refrigeration, fish is either dried or smoked and is the main source of food along with some goats and chickens which are owned by the families and walk the town freely. Days without much success fishing affect the entire village and fisherman are forced to use very small nets especially as the coast is overfished and the size of fish decreases. 

While exploring the village, we made our way down to the water, which was full of activity, men preparing their boats and nets, women with large containers to buy the fish from the boats, and many children playing by the boats and in the water. The fishermen will often ask the children for help with net repair or untangling nets in the water. First, the fishermen will ask for help possibly giving the children a small payment working to recruit them. Eventually the children are trafficked to other towns and exploited for little to no pay. The most dangerous conditions are on Lake Volta in the east of the country where many children can die as they get tangled in the nets while underwater or dive into underwater trees or rocks.

My schedule will be a combination between conducting child and family interviews for research and teaching the sponsored children in the local school. Patriots Ghana works with several different schools in the area and keeps reports on the children that they are sponsoring, monitoring their education progress, class attendance, and family situation. Two days a week will be spend teaching and monitoring the sponsored children's progress while the rest of the week will be spent conducting child and family interview looking for new sponsorships, conducting research on the labour trafficking problem and doing other community outreach. Patriots Ghana is also preparing for a community movie showing (IOM created movie) in order to increase awareness in the upcoming weeklong summer celebration. A handful of victims are coming home in the next week for holiday, before returning to the fishermen who are exploiting them. I have heard that it is easy to identify the trafficked children when they return due to their physical state.

Africa itself is a very different experience from my past work and travels. Walking around the villages is a very strange culture shock. It is quite strange being such a visible minority Every child will yell out “Obruni” which means “white person”. They yell, often at the top of their lungs “Obruni, Obruni, Hi, How are you? Obruni”. Their English conversational skills often stop at “how are you”, but some will grab your hand, either wanting a hand shake or to walk with you. They will not stop yelling unless you acknowledge them somehow and seem excited to see such a strange white creature in their village.