Edmark Rescue Foundation and Rainforest Alliance in collaboration with SWCD with funding from the Norwegian government organized a workshop for the stakeholders at Atiwa East District Assembly Hall. The purpose of the event was to showcase their achievements on several projects undertaken to tackle child labour and force labour in cocoa and mining in Atiwa East District. The theme driving the event is “ Deepening Commitments and Actions to Tackle Forced and Child Labour ”. The event stated at 10:00am.
The CEO of Edmark Rescue Foundation in the person of Mr. Edem Damanka made a presentation after welcoming all stakeholders and participants for their presence. Mr. Edem clearly spelled out the expectation of the event which is to know the very achievements of the foundation only in Atiwa East District base on their perspective and to uncover other achievements which is not yet seen by the foundation. The next emphasis said by Mr. Edem was the core operations of the foundation for which it was founded in the year 2016 which are the Water Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH), health, women empowerment, and child protection.
According to Edmark Rescue Foundation and Rainforest Alliance research statistics said by Mr. Edem in his presentation that, areas which child labour mostly occurs are the cocoa and gold communities since these two commodities are very essential in the world market for which Atiwa East District is inclusive. The foundation since the arrival in the district has been operating in 10 different communities in conjunction with 2 volunteers from each community to the execution of their projects. In addition, every 3 months, the foundation hold stakeholders’ meetings to showcase their achievements on the project “ to help combat child and forced labour in cocoa and mining communities in Ghana ”. The project was done in 10 communities for which was split into 2 parts and shared between Edmark Rescue Foundation and Ark Development Foundation.
The CEO for Edmark Rescue Foundation again pinpoint some of their achievements in their own perspective to the stakeholders which are the effective collaboration with the Atiwa East District Assembly to form and strengthen child labour committee in various communities such as Ankaase, Sekyere, Nanapa and many more, training over 200 community members in livelihood empowerment, impartation of knowledge as well as adding them to utilize those knowledge in reality to make their live better as before, advocating for the community as well as individual or association withing the community to get the basic needs needed for survival such as building of schools and others. The last indicator pertaining to their achievement said by Mr. Edem was aiding in the celebration of child labour and use that platform to educate the people what needs to be done for a child and what not need to be done as a parent.
The CEO of Edmark Rescue Foundation appreciated the Department of Social Welfare and Community Development for opening their arms to receive the foundation and collaborating with them to birth forth these achievements. Mr. Edem gave a very strong suggestion to the authorities of the assembly to share their action plans with NGOs in other to prevent duplication of projects in a community, to enhance evenly distribution of projects across the district, and to continue to have effective communication with other NGO’s and other organizations.
The Stakeholders and volunteers present did beak into 2 sections to discuss about the presentation made CEO of Edmark Rescue Foundation. Reasons was to unveil other achievements of the foundation which was not captured to be captured from the perspective of both the stakeholders and the volunteers. The outcome was heard by Foundation in a presentation manner. Some of the outcomes were financial support from foundation in building recreational centers, youth empowerment, vulnerable people having access to education and many more.
After the presentation from the CEO of the Foundation, an opportunity was giving to the Social Welfare and Community Development Department to speak to the stakeholders and the volunteers. The spokesperson for the Department in the person of Mr. Owusu Emmanuel encouraged the stakeholders and volunteers in various communities to bring forth issues concerning child labour to their door step and that the department has also trained recruited personals and are certified to handle child labour cases on behave of them. The department is open 24/7 and ready to answer the call to child labour issues arising within Atiwa East District, for this is the core mandate of the department.
The Spokesperson for District Ghana Educational Service in the person of Madam, Evylene Duodu was giving an opportunity to speak and said that, in the case whereby a child mistakenly gets pregnant, parent should not drive them away from home but to take and care for the baby whiles the child is schooling. Being educated through schooling and the love from parent to the child would shape the life of the child for marriage, caring and training of the baby and others, for they are the future survival of human race.
The Director for the department of Budget, Mr. Mesack Asare also spoked and said that, the very suggestion made by the CEO of the foundation will be strongly taken into consideration and gave thanks to Mr. Edem and the foundation for collaborating with the authorities in the Assembly after encouraging to continue to help the government in any way they can to make the life of the people better and easier.