Kwame, has been fishing and mending fishing nets for the past 3years and has never been to school but has shown interest to go to school after the rescue team counselled him
Report from March 15 to July 15 2011
It is estimated that there are 1.3million children in Ghana who are engaged in child labor, many of whom are engaged in worst forms of child labor. Cheerful Hearts Foundation, in our sincere desire to affect the lives of people in the communities around us through education and educational campaigns, has launched a project on child labor to help end child labor in the Awutu Senya District, Ghana. The aim of this project is to identify and assist children that are directly involved in fishing that as a result do not have access to basic education.
We started this project with the conduction of a research in “Gomoa Nyanyano”one of the fishing communities in the district where child labor is very prevalent. The main occupation of the people in this community is fishing and most people living in this community are poor. Most of these children also lack basic necessities such as shoes, clothing, adequate food and living situations. Our research revealed that due to extreme poverty it has been a normal practice for families to send their children at a young age to work on the fishing boats in order to generate income to support the family instead of sending them to school. As a result of this age-old practice, the majority of the people in the community are illiterates and do not understand the value of education nor the need to encourage children to attend school.
