Providing School Supplies to 100 Children in Ghana

Thank you very much for your kind support for us. This is Yuki Akahori, the SMILE Ghana Project Manager.

The Smile Ghana Project completed its activities in two communities in August 2022 after having been active since February 2018. During the activity period, there was a lockdown and school closure due to the spread of COVID-19, which extended the activity period, making it the longest activity to date at 4 years and 7 months.

Before the project started, the attendance rate (*1) of kindergarten to elementary school in the two communities was around 50% and child labor was scattered, but when the project was completed in August 2022, child labor in the two communities was zero and the attendance rate of kindergarten to elementary school reached 100% in both communities! During the project period, 141 children who had been engaged in child labor were found by the Community Child Protection Committee (CCPC) and returned to school.

(*1) Since neither of the two communities has a secondary school within the community, we have checked the attendance rate up to elementary school.

Upon completion of the project, interviews and group discussions were conducted with children, teachers, and parents (cacao farmers) to evaluate the project from multiple perspectives, including how much the project activities helped to eliminate child labor and whether our monitoring system works sustainably. Now, we would like to introduce two of the interviews with children who were involved in child labor and their parents.

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Interview with Adwoa and her mother
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Adwoa (pseudonym), 11 years old, is the eldest daughter and has four younger siblings. After her parents divorced, her father went missing and her mother went to the city to work, so the children, including Adwoa, were sent to her grandmother's house. Adwoa originally attended school, but the Community Child Protection Committee (CCPC) found her caring for her younger brothers and sisters and cooking meals for the whole family while the school was closed for nine months due to the spread of the new coronavirus.

The Community Child Protection Committee (CCPC) counseled Adwoa and her grandmother and told them that their children should have time to learn while school was closed and that they should not be allowed to do household chores during the time they should be learning. We also asked her to tell her mother to attend the project's income enhancement training and gave her a set of school supplies to encourage her to go to school when school reopens. Today, Adwoa lives with her mother and attends a 4th-grade elementary school class every day. Her mother also participated in income enhancement training (rice cultivation). During our interview, Adwoa and her mother told us the following

Interview with Adwoa

Q: Do you enjoy school?
A: I enjoy studying, school lunch, having school supplies, and playing. For studying, I like math and English. Having the school supplies and school lunch make me feel going to school more fun.

Q: Do you want to continue studying after you graduate from elementary school?
A: I want to continue going to school to take care of my mother and grandmother and to have a respectable career.

Q: If you had a child who was working, what would you tell him or her?
I would tell them to go to school. If they go to school, they will get school lunches and school supplies.

Interview with Adwoa's mother

Q: Did you notice any difference between before and after your child started going to school again?
A: My daughter used to hate going to school before the school closed. But after receiving the project's support (school lunch and school supplies), she changed completely. Now she is motivated to go to school, and our family is relieved to see her like that.

Q: How has the support from the project helped your child's school life?
A: Through the support from the project, we have been able to save money for our children's education and earn an income to support our family. I applied the skills I learned in the income enhancement training (rice cultivation) to increase my rice harvest to send my children to school. I also learned the importance of education, so I will continue to send my children to school after the project is over.

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Interview with Yaw and her mother
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Yaw (pseudonym) is 11 years old, the same age as Adwoa, and the eldest of five siblings, living with his mother and father.  Yaw originally attended school, but during his absence from school, he started going to the cacao farm with his parents to cut the grass and collect the harvested cacao pots (pods). As the eldest son,  Yaw wanted to help his parents, who worked as caretakers (*2) on the cacao plantation. Even after school resumed, he sometimes missed school to work on the cacao plantation, and he announced this at a meeting to exchange opinions (TWP) (*3) with the parents.

Upon hearing this, the Community Child Protection Committee (CCPC) visited the house to discuss the situation with the parents and convinced them to let Yaw go to school every day. The project provided a set of school supplies. Since then,  Yaw has been going to school every day, and in January next year, he will advance to the 5th grade of elementary school.

(*2) A form of employment in which a cacao farmer works for the landowner and receives a portion of the harvest from the landowner. For details, please refer to [Ghana Report] Cacao has dried up due to lack of rainfall, and farmers' income is decreasing.

(*3) Time with Parents: A meeting where children, parents, teachers, and the Community Child Protection Committee (CCPC) gather to discuss children's rights, parental obligations, and children's feelings. Held once a year.

Yaw and her mother answer questions.

Interview with Yaw

Q: What do you enjoy doing at school?
A: I enjoy playing soccer. As for studying, I like English.

Q: Has your relationship with your family changed since you started attending school?
A: Both at school and at home, I am now able to buy school supplies and basic necessities in small amounts.

Q: Are you satisfied with your relationship with your school teachers and classmates?
A: I am satisfied. When I don't understand something I learned in class well, my teachers teach me again. My classmates help me with my studies.

Q: Do you want to continue studying after you graduate from elementary school?
A: Yes, I do. I want to continue my studies. In the future, I want to become a nurse and protect the lives of people around me.

Interview with Yaw's mother

Q: Do you feel any difference between when your child was working and after he stopped working and started going to school?
A: My son has become more positive about studying and his grades have improved.

Q: How has the support from the project helped you in supporting your child's school life?
A: It was very helpful because my child no longer goes hungry because he can eat school lunch when he goes to school.

Q: Do you think you will be able to continue sending your child to school after the project ends?
A: Yes, we will continue to send them to school. This is because community rules require that children receive compulsory education. These rules encourage me to always send my children to school.

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What we found through the interview
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Interviews with children and parents of child laborers were conducted in eight families, and all families indicated that they would be able to send their children to school after the project was completed. As mentioned in the above 2 interview, the reasons why parents for being able to continue to send their children to school included the following. 

• The project's income-enhancement training has improved the parents' income.
• Because they learned about their obligations to their children and their children's rights.
• Because community regulations clearly state that it is the duty of parents to ensure their children's educational opportunities.

From these responses, we believe that not only economic improvements such as higher incomes have raised the priority of education in the home and changed parents' attitudes toward their children's learning. The parents' awareness of concepts such as "children's rights" and "parents' duties" have also played an important role to raise their priority and changing their attitude. We also found that community regulations on child protection, developed by community stakeholders and district officials, were also influential enough to change parents' behavior.

On the other hand, we also found some challenges: for school lunches, it has become difficult to collect donations from parents in one of the two communities. Moreover, the project provided some school supplies to children from economically disadvantaged families, but after the project was completed, no system had been established within the communities to take charge of this task. We are considering ways to improve these issues and reflect them in the content of our activities in new areas of support to make the project even more sustainable.

We are currently compiling the evaluation results into a report. We will report back to you when it is ready!

Thank you very much for your continued support!

Yuki Akahori,
the SMILE Ghana Project Manager

Hello everyone! Thank you very much for your warm support for ACE's activities. This is Kondo, a staff in charge of Ghana.

In this report, we will tell you about “Community Register”, which is very important for understanding the actual situation of child labour.

In Ghana, guidelines for the creation of government-certified "Child Labour Free Zone" (CLFZ) have been established, and ACE has been involved in their development. The guidelines were completed in 2020, and ACE then attempted to test the guidelines in practice through a Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) research project*.

The guidelines outline the requirements for creating a child labour free zone, which must be met in order to receive government recognition as a CLFZ. In the areas where ACE has been implementing the SMILE Ghana project, most of the requirements stipulated in the guidelines have been met, but there is only one thing that has not yet been implemented, which is a Community Register of residents in each village.

Community Register to capture information at the village level

The Community Register is part of the Ghana Child Labour Monitoring System (GCLMS), which was created by the Ghanaian government to identify and resolve child labour at the community level. Information on community residents is collected on a household-by-household basis, recorded in a database, and managed.

The purpose is to identify children who are engaged in or at risk of child labour by verifying the presence and enrollment of children in each household through the Community Register.

In order to ascertain as accurately as possible, the presence or absence of child labour, and to be able to receive CLFZ certification in the future, we have decided to implement Community Register in the two villages where we are currently working.

Survey and registration process begins

Initially, we planned to register the data on a paper basis, but since the Ghanaian government is currently in the process of putting the database online, we followed the government policy and registered household data online using tablets.

The registration process was as follows.

1. Selection of surveyors to collect information

In discussions with the elders' association, resident volunteers, and others, we selected the people who would actually conduct the survey (information collection) in the village. During the discussion, we also explained that the data collection and registration process would facilitate the understanding of the actual situation of child labour and the formulation of effective preventive measures, as well as the effective formulation of village development plans.

2. Provide training for surveyors

Training was provided to the surveyors selected in the above discussion. Training was provided on how to prevent double counting, how to select survey routes, etc., as surveys in rural areas with high population mobility, such as Ghana, require training. We also trained them in understanding the content of the questionnaires used to collect information and how to ask questions to obtain appropriate answers. Staff from partner organizations with experience in conducting surveys in rural areas served as instructors.

3. Household visits and interviews in the village

Staffs from the local partner organization and trained village surveyors visited each household in the village and interviewed the family structure, length of residence, occupation, children's schooling status, and living conditions according to the items in the questionnaire.

4. Data input

Data obtained from interviews conducted through home visits were entered into an online software program.

Findings from Community Register

The results of Community Register revealed that there was no child labour in two villages, but in one village, the kindergarten to elementary school enrollment rate (the number of children enrolled in school out of the population of children of school age from kindergarten to elementary school) was 76%, which is different from the situation identified in the project. We will discuss this point with local partner organizations to confirm the factors and how these children should be follwed up.

In addition, the survey to obtain the data was a series of hardships. The survey was conducted during the rainy season from May to June, and we encountered heavy rains many times. In some areas, the road conditions were very bad. By conducting the survey throughout the entire village, we were able to reconfirm the conditions of the village, including the lack of infrastructure in many areas.

In order for CLFZs to spread nationwide in earnest in the future, Community Register must also be implemented nationwide. We would like to encourage the Ghanaian government to apply the challenges and lessons learned from our implementation of the CLFZ to other regions.

Hello everyone! Thank you very much for your warm support for ACE's activities. My name is Yuki Akabori, a staff member in charge of Ghana.
The Smile Ghana Project provides free school supplies and uniforms to children from economically disadvantaged families who are at high risk of engaging in child labor. In this report, we report on the children and their families who received the school supplies last June (2021) and what has happened since then.

The conditions of the families and the children living in those families vary, but we have seen families prioritize their children's education even in the midst of difficult circumstances. Please take a look at the stories of these three children and their families.

Recent update from Ghana: Start of the rainy season and rising prices

Japan is in the midst of seasonal changes, with chilly and warm temperatures. Whereas in Ghana, it is a season of blessings and joy, but the worrisome news is that the high cost of living in Ghana continues to rise. According to news reports, this is the highest rate of increase since the founding of Ghana. Prices rose 23.6% in April, and transportation fees, food prices, and utility bills have risen sharply, making life difficult for cacao farmers and other ordinary citizens. The cost of gasoline for vehicles used to travel to aid areas is also rising, and the cost of project activities is also being constricted. The exchange rate has also worsened, and Ghana's currency (the Ghanaian cedi) is now the most depreciated currency among African countries.

Arya and her family

Arya (pseudonym) is in the fourth grade of elementary school and lives with her mother who is in her late 60s. Her school teacher compliments Arya on her punctuality and regular attendance at school, even though her home is far from the elementary school in her village. Arya excelled in her class and was selected to participate in a school quiz competition (in which two elementary schools in the project's support area compete against each other) at an event held in June 2021 to eliminate child labor.

Arya dreams of becoming a school teacher in the future. Her mother is grateful for Arya's support for a set of school supplies and said, "I am interested in my daughter's education and regularly attend PTA meetings.

Rex and his family

Rex's (pseudonym) father was in an automobile accident several years ago and broke his right leg. Before the accident, he was a mason and owned a cacao farm. After the accident, his father underwent two surgeries at a local hospital and was then referred to a further hospital that specializes in bone repair. In order to pay for the hospital and surgery costs of 18,000 Ghana cedis (about 2,300 US dollars), the cacao farm had to be rented out for about 15 years.

During father's hospitalization and treatment, Rex's mother had to go with him to the hospital to support him. Therefore, grandmother took care of Rex while his parents were away from home. Today, Rex's father is able to walk with crutches, but the family is economically vulnerable. Father is unable to farm, mother stays home to take care of his dad, and grandma is in her 80s and elderly.

Despite these circumstances, Rex goes to school every day in good spirits. He says shyly, "Going to school is fun! she replied shyly. Rex's parents are very grateful for the support of the school supplies and promise to do their best for their children. The father hopes for a quick recovery to improve the family's financial situation.

Randy and his family

Randy (pseudonym) lives with his father, who has been suffering from Buruli ulcer* for the past 8 years. His father has spent more than 5,000 Ghana cedis (about 650 US dollars) for treatment at various hospitals. Eventually, the medical expenses became so high that he could no longer afford the medicines needed for treatment. Because of this, Randy's mother and three siblings left home and moved to another area in search of a better environment.
According to his father, his mother supports her three children by peddling kenke, one of Ghana's staple foods, in the area where they have relocated, and she also sends money home to Randy and his father from time to time. The father had hoped to be eligible for a Ghanaian government project to support vulnerable groups (called LEAP, implemented by the World Bank and the Ministry of Gender), but he did not get the chance and was not eligible.
Randy attends school every day and "loves school!" He says. His father said, "I am grateful that my son received assistance with school supplies. I would like to continue to support my son's education in any way I can.

*A disease classified in the genus of bacteria that causes tuberculosis and leprosy.

The Smile Ghana Project provides school supplies and other financial support for children's education and families! Thank you for your continued support!

Hello everyone. I'm Akira Kondo, the project manager of the Smile Ghana Project.

Our project was scheduled from February 2018 to August 2020. However, from March 2020, the school was closed due to the influence of Covid-19, and children could not learn. In addition, the temporary closure of the local market reduced the cash income of farmers. As a result, cocoa farmers were in distress and more than 60 children returned to child labor.

Currently, primary schools have been reopened, and all children who were child labor during the school holidays have returned to school, but there is a regulation that limits the length of stay at school to four hours to prevent the spread of infection increase. In addition, although the local market has been reopened, the cash income of farmers who are parents of children remains lower than before.

Therefore, after discussions with our partner NGO CRADA, the project has decided to set up a one-year follow-up period from September 2021 to August 2022. During the follow-up period, we carry out the follow-up of the activities of the Community Child Protection Committee (CCPC) which is a community volunteer organization for conducting community patrol activities, continuous support for improving the learning environment (supporting school feeding and extra class), continuous support for raising the additional income of cocoa farmers (including rice production), and promotion activities of community regulations on child protection at targeted communities.

By setting a follow-up period, the damage caused by the Covid-19 to children and communities’ residents can be reduced as much as possible, and the elimination of child labor by community people centered on residents' organizations such as CCPC. We would like to make sure that the mechanisms for protecting children's rights are sustainedin targeted communities.

Covid 19 caused heavy damage to people and children in cocoa-producing areas. We will continue to support them so that as many children as possible can live with peace of mind.

Hello, everyone! This is Kondo, the Ghana Project manager. A state of emergency has been declared and inconveniences continue, but I'm waiting for the return of our freedom! 

In Ghana, people are struggling to protect their livelihoods under the difficult circumstances of the Covid-19 pandemic. Even after the lockdown was put in place across Ghana in March last year and later lifted in April, activities such as open-air markets where large numbers of people gather were restricted, affecting many cocoa farmers. In addition, schools were closed for a total of 9 months, which resulted in 62 children returning to child labor in the project area. As soon as the schools reopened in January 2021, they stopped child labor and went back to school again, but many cocoa farmers are still struggling to make ends meet. 

Particularly serious is the lack of a stable source of income for cocoa farmers, which makes it difficult for them to support the education of their children on a stable basis. Originally, many cacao farmers did not have any other means of income. As a result, fluctuations in cacao yields and prices often led to a drastic decrease in income and instability in their lives. Diversifying cultivars to solve this problem will reduce that risk and make farmers' livelihoods more resilient. 

The project began farming edible snails in 2019. And from 2020, people in the project are starting to grow new rice crops in order to diversify their income sources. In fact, rice is considered to be a very good crop in Ghana, as it is highly profitable and consumed by the people themselves. It is heard that some cocoa farmers are quitting cocoa cultivation and shifting to rice production. 

Using Ghana's rural development scheme called Women in Additional Income Generating Activities (WAIGA), they started growing rice under the guidance of engineers from Ghana's Ministry of Agriculture. Twenty-five farmers will participate in the training and will be provided with seeds, fertilizers, etc. The cost of the training will be offset by the payment of a bag of rice after the harvest. This year, 25 farmers harvested a total of 184 bags, or 7.5 bags per acre, and the rice was sold out at the market. 

Poverty is not the only reason why child labor occurs, but it is still important to get out of poverty, improve income and stability in order to protect children's rights and educational environment. Especially in this Covid-19 pandemic, how families can ensure that their children are educated is an important issue. The project is now conducting monitoring and awareness-raising activities to eliminate child labor by themselves, including child protection committees and school management committees. If we can provide the infrastructure for children to learn and play in a safe environment, the project area can move closer to becoming a Child Labour Free Zone, which the Ghanaian government is promoting.  

Even in the difficult circumstances of the Covid-19 pandemic, the people in the project communities continue to work to eliminate child labor, and in doing so, they also continue to make efforts to improve their own lives. We, ACE, will support and encourage such local people!