Your partnership with Every Child Ministries fighting child trafficking at the source
Fighting Child Trafficking at the Source
How many times do people have to fall over a cliff before we build a guard rail at the top? This is the question we’ve been asking ourselves about the problems of children in Ghana.
We noticed many trafficked & street children were from one area
Repeatedly we have found that kids that ended up on the streets originated in the Central Region. In child trafficking cases too, we are finding the Central Region is a primary source. So we’ve been asking ourselves, in addition to doing all we can to help kids after they get trafficked or they end up on the streets of Accra, shouldn’t we be doing something to help kids at the primary source? Maybe small efforts there would yield big results in terms of saving kids from situations that are even more desperate than poverty.
Since ECM is for the forgotten children of Africa, we have to serve the Central Region of Ghana
That’s why Every Child Ministries has decided to step out in faith again, to stretch ourselves again. We are a mission agency offering hope to "the forgotten children" of Africa. That's why we have to begin work in the Central Region of Ghana.
The Central Region of Ghana--Beautiful, Interesting, Desperately Poor
Just to the west of Accra along the coast, the Central Region boasts some well-known tourist attractions such as Cape Coast and Elmina, major one-time slaving castles, Kakum canopy walkway, fabulous beaches and picturesque fishing villages along the Gulf of Guinea. It is also a place of abject poverty, especially in the Gomoa District, reported by the World Bank to be the poorest area of Ghana in 2002. Although there have been improvements since then, the Central Region continues to be a major source of kids landing in desperate situations.
ECM's Plans for the Central Region
God has brought us awareness of situations in which children are being trafficked as both source and destination areas, along with key contacts to help us begin to tackle the problem. ECM’s plan is to begin by opening a sponsorship program in one of the poorest communities we can find, and an office from which we will coordinate programs including an initiative to fight child trafficking. We will fight trafficking directly through documentation and intervention. Perhaps more importantly, we will fight the root causes in key areas. A sponsored child is extremely unlikely to be trafficked or to end up on the street, because that child’s education is assured and loving mentors are watching over his or her welfare. And while we can sponsor only a small number of children in the beginning, the mere existence of a sponsorship program in the area creates hope for all the others as well.
Needed: Partners in Fighting Child Trafficking at the Source
ECM has funds on hand for only one year of this ministry. We need to secure long-term donors to the project. Would you consider a monthly or an annual gift? Every gift of every size is valued and brings us closer to helping rescue children BEFORE tragedy strikes their lives. THANK YOU!
