With only $5 a week, you can take stand against child slavery.
- There are approximately 200 million children in the world today involved in child labour
- Child labour is mentally, physically, socially and morally harmful to children
- Ghanaian children as young as three years old are sold by their families into lives of bonded labour.
Can YOU spare $5 a week?
Join LifeLink in the fight against child slavery, and say “NO” to child trafficking.
A simple donation of $5 per week will assist in the provision of medical and educational support in communities affected by Ghana’s destructive fishing industry. By registering with LifeLink, you have the opportunity to empower vulnerable Ghanaian communities to drastically improve the future for their children.
Impact of your contribution
Monies raised will go towards providing educational opportunities and medical services to these vulnerable communities. In particular, your contribution will go towards:
- Funding the construction of a school facility including classrooms, library and a computer lab
- Funding community wide seminars, aimed at increasing awareness about the implications of child labour
- Providing financial support towards the salaries of the school teachers in the education facility
- The purchase of school supplies for the children
- Funding the training of community members to implement their own self-sustaining business ventures
- Funding the construction of a medical facility to improve community health and provide counselling for rescued children
- Funding medical assistants’ salaries
- The purchase of an adequate supply of medical supplies of the facility
- Funding the employment of local labourers to help build the infrastructure
- Provide employment for vulnerable single mothers
How LifeLink came about
In January 2009, YGAP volunteers visited Ghana and came face-to-face with modern day slavery. While in Ghana, YGAP spent time at the Freedom Centre; a safe house for children escaping slavery in Ghana. Run by City of Refuge Ministries (CORM), all children living at the Centre were rescued from bonded labour in the fishing communities along the Lake Volta Region. YGAP was also involved in a rescue mission to save an additional eight children from the Lake, and assisted in the construction of a vocational training centre for rescued children.
From their experiences in Ghana, YGAP volunteers learnt of the devastating repercussions this inhumane child labour industry has on Ghana’s children and communities. YGAP was fortunate to observe the life-changing work CORM is undertaking in this region. These experiences compelled YGAP to establish LifeLink to enable other Australians to build a relationship with the CORM and effectively join the fight against child slavery.
Child trafficking in Ghana
From 1999 to 2007, 34% of Ghanaian children aged between 5 – 14 were involved in child labour (UNICEF). 
The internal trafficking of children into Ghana’s fishing industry is a terrifying reality. It is not uncommon for Ghanaian children as young as three or four years old to be sold by their families to work in the fishing communities along the Lake Volta region. This form of child labour is modern day slavery. Working as bonded labourers, these children are forced to work up to 14 hours a day either on the lake or as domestic servants. The children live in deplorable conditions, are barely fed and are unfortunately subject to both physical and psychological abuse from their masters. They are outcasts in the fishing communities and have no access to education. As a result of such conditions, these children are highly traumatized and often suffer from stunted growth and water-borne illnesses from lake parasites.
LifeLink’s project partner, the City of Refuge Ministries (CORM), is a grassroots organisation working in Ghana’s Lake Volta region to stop and prevent the trafficking and exploitation of children in the fishing industry. CORM was founded in 2006 to:
- Liberate children from modern-day slavery, giving them a home and education
- Educate others about human trafficking
- Motivate individuals and groups to join the fight against slavery
- Educate the local community about other means of gaining income without buying and selling young children
Why sign up to LifeLink?
Your contribution to LifeLink will assist in the construction and ongoing support of a medical and educational facility for vulnerable children and their communities in Ghana. Through an investment in education and medical services, LifeLink aims to support efforts to alleviate poverty in Ghanaian communities, thus lessoning the risk of children being trafficked into bonded labour in the destructive fishing industry.
Please help us end this oppressive cycle of child slavery by signing up today. And remember… every child counts.
** All donations to LifeLink greater than $2 are tax deductible.
** YGAP & LifeLink proudly work in partnership with the World Relief Overseas Aid Organisation.
Contact louise.atkins@y-gap.org for general enquiries, or to arrange direct-debit donations.
