First Month Summary

First Month Summary for the Newsletter

The past month has been very busy for the Cheerful Hearts staff. As summer school finishes and official school begins, there is a lot to do in order to prepare for the upcoming year. Teaching classes, reviewing students’ progress, and updating sponsored children’s profiles have kept the office busy along with the numerous community outreach projects occurring in all three of the local fishing communities.

First, Cheerful Hearts would like to thank all of summer volunteers for their hard work and passion. Now that the summer is officially over, the office has become much quieter, but it was nice to work with such a dedicated team. All of their hard work is appreciated and will be continued as we begin the new year.

The children seem excited for school and many took advantage of the free vacation school classes that were run and staffed by Cheerful Hearts volunteers. Over the summer we had classes both in Nyanyano at Franklin Int as well as in Senya at Day Star International, both schools who teach our sponsored children. This year, we are sponsoring 57 children who are placed in various schools throughout the three fishing communities of Senya, Nyanyano, and Fetteh. All of these children were trafficked or were working in child labour and now have the opportunity to attend school free of charge. Cheerful Hearts also has a volunteer and former teacher working in Senya two days a week, both to educate the children as well as to monitor the work and progress of our sponsored students.

The Cheerful Hearts team is very excited about their new fundraising campaign that started at the beginning of September. The poultry farm project, which is directed at combating the poverty of Senya, has been over a year in the making. Finally, Cheerful Hearts is ready to start the fundraising and has launched the campaign online at Indiegogo.com. The campaign will last until the end of October and several people have already started donating. Please continue to support this project and share it with your friends.

Child labour talks have also resumed in the local schools. The first talk of the school year occurred in Nyanyano where over 80 children listened to and participated in the interactive discussion about child labour. With an updated curriculum, the talks focus on the difference between good work and bad work as well as the importance of education. Cheerful Hearts will continue to promote community education and outreach and will continue the talks with various schools in the fishing communities.

Along with the talks in local schools, the community volunteer project has also been continuing in Nyanyano. With two months left in the project, Cheerful Hearts staff sat down with our volunteers to see how their outreach was going. Even though local community outreach can be difficult, the volunteers were very excited about the impacts that they have made so far in their community. It is wonderful to see local Ghanaians take such pride in their community and being so dedicated to educating their neighbors on the issue of child labour.

Finally, Cheerful Hearts was extremely proud of the community movie event in Senya on August 27^th. There was a wonderful turnout for the presentation and discussion of a film created by the IOM and Challenging Heights about the problem of Child Trafficking in Ghana. The large audience of around 400 individuals was very interested in the information. While watching their faces during the film, it was apparent that the presentation made an impact on their views of Yeji and child labour. The discussion afterwards was also very powerful, especially due to several child speeches from our local sponsored children which were incredibly heartfelt and moving. Cheerful Hearts is so proud of the children who spoke and their testimonies to the importance of education had a deep effect on everyone in the audience. 

Community Volunteer Meeting

Community Volunteer Meeting

Along with sponsoring children and conducting research, Cheerful Hearts Foundation is also focused on community outreach. We are currently conducting a project in which about 20 community members in were trained on the importance of child education and the dangers of child labour. After their training, they agreed to spend two hours, 2-3 days a week, sharing this information with the people in their community. Each month we sit down with the volunteers and see how their outreach work is going. The project will run for five months and will be evaluated when it finishing in October. We are currently running this program in Nyanyano, but we hope to extend it to the other community as well.

It was interesting listening to the volunteers talk about their successes and struggles while working on the project. One of the biggest concerns for the volunteers was gathering getting personal information such as names and ages from the individuals that they talk with. In order to evaluate the community impact of the project, it is important to keep data on who the volunteers educating, but many parents will refuse to give their names to the volunteers. We talked about various ways to fix this problem. First, we discussed how it is important to not be robotic when talking to families. Volunteers must be personable and establish a connection instead of simply trying to fill out a questionnaire or disseminate information. In order to work in the community, volunteers must create a connection with their neighbors so that their message will actually be heard and the project’s mission will be effective. It is also import to try to get the community to support the cause. This is one reason why community volunteers involved in the outreach. Along with the education and information volunteers must explain our mission, in order to form a partnership with our organization and the community.

Volunteers also realized that many parents misunderstood the purpose of the project. When parents see people with clipboards walking around the village, they automatically expect the individual to be signing up children for sponsorships. Even though Cheerful Hearts does sponsor children to go to school, families need to know that we cannot simply walk around the town writing down names of children to sponsor. There is a very specific interview process that Cheerful Hearts needs to conduct before sponsoring a child. They need to make sure that the child fits our mission statement working with child labour and trafficking, and we must evaluate whether the child will attend school and use the opportunity given to them. Even though we would love to sponsor all children to attend school, limited resources force us to priorities when distributing sponsorship. It is especially when I am walking around town as a foreigner, that the initial belief is that I am there to give them money and sponsor their child. The Ghanaian volunteers have these same problems so we discussed the importance of being clear that the current project is working on advocacy and not sponsorships.

There were two stories that stand out from the meeting. One was about a mother who told a community volunteer that she was not going to send her daughter to school because her older child, who was in high school, had become obstinate and was poorly behaving due to his time in the schools. Internally, I laughed at this notion that it was school that made teenagers obstinate and rebellious, as it seems to be a universal state for the teenage mind; however, we talked about how it is important that we encourage parents to control their children and be active in their lives. School is not the enemy, but instead we need to give parents new tools to discipline children. We discussed methods for developing a child’s respect and punishments for misbehavior, trying not to focus on caning which is the only option that most parents consider. One of the younger volunteers (there are several high school students that have been trained to try to talk with their peers about the importance of education) described a household that she came to where she found a daughter not allowed to go to school and was being abuse by her aunt. Even as a high school student, she knew that the physical abuse was not alright, but did not know how best to help the younger girl. We made sure to discuss the issue of child abuse at our meeting. She will be going back to the house this week with adult (and a respected member of the community) in order to address the physical violence that is going on behind the closed doors. With the training that these volunteers have received, they must act as the first line of attack against the abuse and exploitation of the children of the community. Children should not be beaten in their homes or working on the shore, but instead should be in school, having a childhood and creating a future for themselves.

I believe the community outreach and education that is done by Cheerful Hearts is just as important as sponsoring students or conducting research. Many individuals in Nyanyano (and even more so in Senya and Fetteh) have not completed primary school. It is not always that they beat their children or sell them to traffickers, because they are bad people, but instead it is due to a lack of knowledge. The more that the community can work together and educate each other about the child abuse and exploitation occurring in their village, the safer the children will be.

Fundraising project created

Fundraising project created

During the past several of days along with teaching and trafficking research, I have been working on our new fundraising project. In order to address the poverty problem, which is often the root cause of child trafficking, Cheerful Hearts has been planning a Poultry Farm project to add a new industry to the fishing community of Senya. Senya is one of the main trafficking sources in central Ghana due to a large population, high poverty, and a small fishing fleet/coastline. With new jobs and something not dependent on fish, the families of the sponsored children can start to make money to support their children instead of selling them to traffickers. Please take a look at the campaign:

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/combating-child-labour-through-job-creation/x/3806483

There are definitely other ways to get involved as well. There is a serious lack of reading materials in the local schools and any elementary school books to help with reading are always appreciated. The last option is to help sponsor a child. This school year we are starting with 57 sponsored children. I am currently working on all of their backgrounds and stories as well as documenting their academic performance last year. All of this information gets passed along to the sponsors.

Along with working on fundraising, I did get a chance to watch some football on Sunday. A large crowd showed up for the Tottenham vs Liverpool game, but sadly Tottenham did not (3-0 loss; painful to watch).

More excitement, first laundry day! We will see if everything is dry when I get home (Due to the super hot sun, I would be shocked if there was any water left, not only on the clothing but in the entire country).

 


Again, if you would like to be involved, it is greatly appreciated, but either way please keep enjoying the blog and learning more about child trafficking and my experiences in Ghana. 

End of the second week and weekend activities

End of the second week and weekend activities

After two weeks, life is beginning find a routine. Navigating my way around town (slightly difficult without street names or signs), types of food and eating schedules, public transit, it all seems easy. Even cold showers are beginning to feel normal. As time progresses, the general week plan is beginning to take shape: teaching Monday and Wednesday (along with monitoring the sponsored children and recording their progress), child interviews on Tuesday (then compiling the data for the quarterly report), community awareness on Thursday (as well as meeting with parents), and finally meetings and paperwork on Fridays.

Most of my work currently is going into reporting on and monitoring all of the sponsored children. The official school year starts next week and I need to update all of their profiles and examining their marks from last term. It is important, especially when sponsoring children, to keep all of their reports up to date, both for their educational progress as well as to inform the individuals who sponsor them financially. Because I am in the classroom two days a week, it makes it much easier to monitor the children, but there is a still lot of work to make sure everything is prepared for the new school year. There are a total of 56 sponsored children in three different communities, but around 20 attend the Day Star International School in Senya (which is where I am teaching). My goal is to know each of them by name soon.  

As well as completing the reports and paper work, we are also busy talking to all of the parents. Even though Cheerful Hearts is sponsoring their child, which allows them to go to school when they otherwise could not, (option #2 for many of them is to return to child labour), still many parents struggle seeing the importance of education. Home visits are necessary to make sure that the parents understand the opportunity that their child is being given as well as to confirm that they will support their child’s quest for an education. There are many inspirational stories of children who single handedly changing their future through education, but most children (American, Costa Rican, Dutch, or Ghanaian) still need someone to help push them along and help them stay focused on their goals.

Weekends are slower with plenty of free time. After Friday, which involved a long day of meetings with various community volunteers as well as the planning of our major fundraising effort (which should start on Wednesday), I decided on Saturday to go and explore Accra (the capital of Ghana). Accra is about a 45-60 minutes tro-tro ride east of Kasoa. After a hot and cramped tro-tro ride, I arrived around noon to start my walking tour. I started in Jamestown, the oldest part of the city. The Jamestown fishing community was very similar to Senya or Nyanyano with many boat and plenty of poverty (but I did see my first University of North Carolina basketball jersey). There is also a small fort for as well as a lighthouse which are some of the oldest buildings in city. From Jamestown, I walked to Independence Square which is a large “fair grounds” where the president will give speeches and host other large national events. The football stadium is also across the street, but the season in Ghana has not yet began; a Ghanaian football game is definitely on my to-do list in the future. Along the way, I discovered the Nkrumah Mausoleum (a garden and memorial to the first Ghanaian president) as well as the Art Market, before turning back into the heart of the city to find the National Museum. I was not particularly impressed with the capital city. It was hot and busy, feeling very much like a large African city (which it is). I did however, find a restaurant where I could sit down at a table and order a sandwich (a slight difference from the normal rice and fish diet from roadside vendors).

After eating and getting a cold drink, I was reenergized and continued on my quest to explore the city. After walking into several shops, I found my way back to Nkrumah Circle, a major stop for tro-tros and taxis. With some time to spare, I decided to stop in an internet café to answer some emails where I asked the owner for a recommendation for dinner. I ended up finding a sports bar where I could grab some food and watch the football matches for the day (no, not the opening day of college football, but English Premier League football). EPL football is everywhere in Ghana. Everyone has a team and even in Kasoa there are small buildings that are lined with benches all focused on two or three tvs showing the biggest matches of the day (English and Spanish football is common, but Dutch leagues games are pretty tough to find).

After a long hot day, I was ready to head home, but decided to meet up with several of my coworkers at a local bar in Accra to hear music and have a drink. It was a fun night as the bar had numerous tables outside (finally cool after the sun went down) along with Ghanaian party music. It turned out to be a successful day in Accra, even though Accra may not be the easiest city to explore as a tourist.

Community Event Movie Presentation

Community Event Movie Presentation

Here is my community write up for last night's movie showing:

As Senya’s Akumese Festival was drawing to a close, Cheerful Hearts Foundation had a special event planned for the community. Sadly, many children and parents do not understand the importance of a child’s education as well as the dangers of the fishing industry. In order to raise awareness, Cheerful Hearts Foundations prepared a movie showing for the entire community to shed light on what is really happening to their children.

After an epic rainstorm completely destroyed any hope for an outdoor movie on Tuesday night, Cheerful Hearts decided try again the following day. Even though we had originally planned to have our showing on the final day of the festival, we still hoped for a good turnout. A group of volunteers arrived around 2:00 pm to start building excitement for the film. Along with the loud dance music and amusing verbal banter, Cheerful Hearts hired a car with speakers to drive around Senya inviting all residents in ear shot to come to learn about the issue of child labour and trafficking in Ghana.

As the sun began to go down, a crowd started to gather. With seating space limited, both children and parents began finding a space outside the church to better see the screen. By the time it was completely dark and the crowd was loosened up with some clips of Boys Kasa, Eric started the presentation with some information about the power of a child’s education and the purpose of Cheerful Hearts. With nearly 500 people eagerly waiting, Eric turned the microphone over to Hayford and the movie began.

Hayford, the director of the local school Day Star, helped translate the movie into the local Senya language, keeping the crowd both excited and curious throughout the entire presentation. Many parents and children did not have any idea what happens to the children when they would leave to work in Yeji or other fishing villages. The truth about the poor living conditions, acts or threats of violence and beatings, as well as the life ending or debilitating injuries accompanied with the fishing industry were shocking to many in the crowd. Watching the audience, it was easy to see how seriously they were taking this new information, as many were shaking their heads or looking away, finally beginning to understand the horrors associated with child labour.

After the movie finished, the discussion turned to the importance of child education. Several community members stepped up to the microphone to express the importance of school. Each speaker expressed how education is the key which opens all the doors for a child’s future. Child trafficking has robbed many children of the opportunity to obtain an education, but the community needed to know that these children still had the opportunity to change their futures. One of the most powerful moments of the evening occurred when several of Cheerful Hearts’ sponsored children came to address the community. Their excitement and drive to change their future was empowering to every child in the audience and their appreciation for Cheerful Hearts and their sponsorships was emotionally touching for everyone involved. Hearing such meaningful message from the very boys that had been working on Lake Volta and were now back at home and in school brought the crowd to their feet with a standing ovation.

The movie night was a huge success and helped raise awareness about the dangers of child trafficking. Keeping children in school and away from the exploitative and abuse work on Lake Volta is the key for both the children of Senya as well as the future of all of Ghana. Cheerful Hearts wants to thank both the IOM and Challenging Heights for their film as well as so many other individuals in the Senya community for helping to put together such an impactful event. Awareness and education is the first step in stopping child trafficking and Cheerful Hearts Foundation is proud to have had such a successful event last night in Senya. 

First Day of Child Interviews

First Day of Child Interviews

This morning was the first day of child interviews, so I took a tro tro to Senya to gather data for the child trafficking research (This was my first time attempting the journey solo, but made it without problem). This data then gets entered into a spreadsheet, from which we create a report each quarter about the trafficking problem in Ghana. Today is an important day because it is the final day of the festival in Senya, and many families (and trafficked children) return home for the week to celebrate.

I met Hayford, who is the director of one of the local schools where we have many of our sponsored children in Senya. He is a well known figure in the community and works with a lot of the children throughout the town. Walking the streets with him is similar to walking with a celebrity as he must stop and say hello to everyone. Together we walked towards the shore to find some children that he knew were trafficked.

  

During the interviews, I try my best to fill out a questionnaire and use Hayford as my interpreter. He is able to explain what we are doing and speak to the children and families in the local language (which I cannot). Our first interview was with a boy that Hayford knew. He was 14 years old, and had been trafficked to Yeji by his uncle for almost 6 years. In Yeji, he would fish, mend nets, and help on the boats. He was often beaten by either his uncle or by his boss if he did not do as he was told. The boss would prepare two meals a day, but did not provide other supplies such as shoes, clothing, or personal hygiene products. He had to work 6 days a week and could then work on Sunday on his own in order to make some money for himself. Conditions were quite bad and he attempted to run away once, but was caught and beaten. After that experience he never again attempted to escape. One of the questions on the questionnaire asks, what he disliked and liked during time working on Lake Volta. Sadly, he could not think of anything he liked and could only describe the situation and the work conditions as bad. Most of his answers were short; it was obvious that his time fishing was not a memory that he wished to hold on to. He said that he was never seriously injured, but he did know of several children that died while in the water, normally getting caught trying to untangle the nets from the underwater hazards. These stories were not unlike others that I had heard and read, but having them told by such a small child made them much more real.  

While walking through the crowded neighborhoods, Hayford asked a local child if he knew where to find other kids that had been working on Lake Volta. Quickly, he led us to a neighbor’s house. The home belonged to a porridge seller and a large extended family all congregated throughout the living room. She told us that her sister and husband had moved with their family of 9 children to Yeji to work as fishermen. All 9 of the children were forced to work long hours with their father on the boats. Two children were now in Senya living with her, so that they could attend school. The girls had a similar story about their fishing jobs; lots of work and no free time, accompanied by beating when they did not work hard enough. They were very shy especially in such a crowded house to tell us any details, but they were happy that their parents allowed them to travel to Senya, in order to go to school instead of work on the boats. 

Our interviews were cut short today as it started to downpour as we were leaving the girls house. Luckily we made it to the school where we sat stranded for several hours until catching a tro tro back to Kasoa.

Festival

Festival

The weekend is free time and after a week of cultural adjustments and working, I was excited to have some time to explore the town. Three volunteers were leaving on Sunday after two months in Ghana, which meant that we needed to celebrate their final weekend. Luckily, it was the perfect weekend for a celebration, as Senya (the fishing village that I am working in) was having their yearly festival. The festival celebrates the first harvest which eliminated hunger and allowed the village to prosper back several hundred years ago. Each year, many families travel back to Senya to see family, dance, and party.

We decided as a group to go to the festival on Saturday night. We arrived around 8:00 (which seeing as I have been going to sleep around 9:00 was quite late). Even if I was tired (partly because of a 45 minute tro tro ride in the dark), my energy levels were recharged quickly as we walked down the crowded street. Everyone seemed to be outside and spontaneous dance parties were found on every block. After a walk up and down the main street, we (3 international volunteers and 4 Ghanaians) went to the main bar located at the front of the town which was hosting a live band. The group continued drinking and dancing the night away, first to the live music outside, and then to the “night club” inside. A mixture of some American and some Ghanaian hits kept the crowd entertained well into the night. It is always interesting being the only white guy on the dance floor, and I tried my best to overcome the painful dancing stereotypes that have plagued the obruni for years. Sadly, the final night of festivities where we were going to show our a movie about child trafficking was rained out, but hopefully we will reschedule for this week.