On The Road Blog
Community-Based Organizations Addressing Community Challenges – GFC’s Model
- By Emmanuel Otoo on February 14th, 2012
- Category: Blog, Sub-Saharan Africa
James of Challenging Heights
Washington, DC–Having the opportunity to interact with someone who spent most of his growing years in slavery was a powerful experience for me. This man used to be a slave who worked on Lake Volta in Ghana. After being trafficked into slavery, he worked for several hours each day under harsh conditions, without being paid, and often without food. The hazardous work he was forced to perform contravenes Ghana’s Children’s Act (passed in 1998) and included such unacceptable activities as bailing water out of canoes, repairing torn fishing nets, pulling in buoys, setting up fish traps, removing fish from nets, and diving into deep waters to remove trapped nets.
Today, James Kofi Annan is the executive director of Challenging Heights, a non –governmental child-oriented organization in Ghana that works with community members to end child trafficking and child slavery. James has won six international awards in the five years since he was first identified as an important community leader by The Global Fund for Children. He is now working with his team in Ghana to assist communities in designing and implementing their own action plans to help address the root causes of child trafficking and to help create community resistance to child trafficking and all forms of modern-day slavery.
On February 10, 2012 on one of his trips to the US, James visited The Global Fund for Children’s office in Washington, DC, to express his appreciation to GFC for “discovering” him and, on behalf of Challenging Heights and other grassroots organizations, to thank GFC for its belief in the power of community-based organizations to address community problems in a sustainable way.
At The Global Fund for Children, we seek out organizations that serve some of the most marginalized, voiceless, and hard-to-reach children in the world. We look for true grassroots organizations with local leadership, community and youth involvement, innovation, and sustainability—qualities exemplified by Challenging Heights. In addition to offering financial support, we provide public exposure for these organizations and for the issues they address, and we help their innovative ideas reach the broader philanthropic community.
Please get involved with The Global Fund for Children’s work and help us make a difference in the lives of the world’s children who are still waiting for our support and intervention.
Another GREAT blog Emmanuel…this issue is of particular importance to me as Im an avid member of the anti-slavery movement, especially in Africa. It is also significant because this scourge is happening in my home to the most vulnerable and most fragile members of society to whom we owe every protection–Children! Once again, I applaud the work of GFC for supporting initiatives that address the root causes of the problem and implement sustainable solutions. I equally applaud your commitment to highlighting the issues that plague our continent. It is our collective responsibility not to stand by and watch but to take on the challenges as Mr. Annan has done. Kudos to all!!
It is true that the projects concerning children in need in the local areas should be controlled by the community locals. That is why we also gave a chance to the community members become committee members because we believed that they have the correct and true information about the child.
Olá Emmanuel, a história desse homem anma as nossas esperanças que possamos construir uma nova humanidade, onde a vida seja posta em primeiro lugar e não o lucro de uns poucos…Vida longa aos lutadores e defensores da vida!
(English translation)
Hello Emmanuel, the story of this man raises our hopes that we can build a new humanity where life is placed first and not for the profit of a few. Long live the fighters and defenders of life!
I must applaud the GFC for the noble assignment they’ve taken upon themselves. Most of the affected children may not have a way out if not because of the work being done by the GFC. Even though we still have a long way to go, the issue of child slavery is slowly (but surely) being tackled. These children deserve to be children and to have education so they can improve their quality of life.
Great job, Emma.