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Greetings from GhanaI chose to sit in the back of the van to keep others from getting dizzy or claustrophobic. Plus, I’m a little guy and don’t mind the shy legroom. I hadn’t anticipated the potholes though, and the back of the van was taking the brunt.
Told to be a 6-hour journey, it ended up somewhere around 12 or 13 - the final hours being on a stretch of road we were advised not to drive on after dark to avoid the pirates of the plains; hostile farmers who have a way of stopping traffic to steal your goods. We braved the road twice around midnight setting our intention on safety and success. I didn’t travel that far to be shut down by thieves. I was there to learn.
Almost immediately, the strength of my mentors became my own. I was amazed at how fast my perspective transformed because everyday leading up to my arrival in West Africa, all I really let myself hear were the possible dangers.
I flew into Ghana to spend 5 days on the ground with Free The Slaves– a not for profit organization committed to liberating slaves around the world, helping them sustain their freedom and rebuild their lives
Told to be a 6-hour journey, it ended up somewhere around 12 or 13 - the final hours being on a stretch of road we were advised not to drive on after dark to avoid the pirates of the plains; hostile farmers who have a way of stopping traffic to steal your goods. We braved the road twice around midnight setting our intention on safety and success. I didn’t travel that far to be shut down by thieves. I was there to learn.
Almost immediately, the strength of my mentors became my own. I was amazed at how fast my perspective transformed because everyday leading up to my arrival in West Africa, all I really let myself hear were the possible dangers.
I flew into Ghana to spend 5 days on the ground with Free The Slaves– a not for profit organization committed to liberating slaves around the world, helping them sustain their freedom and rebuild their lives
A slave is someone who is forced to work without pay; who is under threat or violence, and cannot walk away.
Yes, slavery still exists in the world. It doesn’t always appear as someone in shackles, an image we know from our history books, but everyday humans are bought, sold, stolen and even born into servitude. The current estimation for how many people in the world are still enslaved: 27 million.
This is James Kofi Annan. When he was 6 he was forced into slavery and didn’t manage to escape until he was 13. He worked for fishermen on Lake Volta doing the dangerous work of diving underwater to free the fishing nets from where they’d get caught on debris. On the lake today, 90% of the work is done by children and anywhere from 8-12 thousand of them are enslaved. Most of them are taken so young they believe the traffickers are their parents. Many of them are beaten. Most of them are malnourished. And quite a few don’t even know how old they are.
哎呀我忘了把标题和正文分开了..悲剧,大家凑合着看吧.标题是
Greetings From Ghana
Yes, slavery still exists in the world. It doesn’t always appear as someone in shackles, an image we know from our history books, but everyday humans are bought, sold, stolen and even born into servitude. The current estimation for how many people in the world are still enslaved: 27 million.
This is James Kofi Annan. When he was 6 he was forced into slavery and didn’t manage to escape until he was 13. He worked for fishermen on Lake Volta doing the dangerous work of diving underwater to free the fishing nets from where they’d get caught on debris. On the lake today, 90% of the work is done by children and anywhere from 8-12 thousand of them are enslaved. Most of them are taken so young they believe the traffickers are their parents. Many of them are beaten. Most of them are malnourished. And quite a few don’t even know how old they are.
哎呀我忘了把标题和正文分开了..悲剧,大家凑合着看吧.标题是
Greetings From Ghana
After James escaped, he taught himself to read and went on to receive his masters in communications. What James does today is what he wished someone had done for him as a child. He operates a rescue boat.
We hit the lake shortly after sunrise and already it was hot and teeming with children in canoes. James doesn’t hesitate to steer his boat up alongside any of them and start a conversation. His work is all about building trust and good relationships. If there is an adult on the boat, James acts as if he’s inquiring about the fishing using us as allies – explaining to us the unique and primitive way fish are caught on the lake. As the conversation continues he asks about the boat’s crew, pointing to the small children pulling in thorny fish, or the kid bailing out water, or the one diving beneath the surface to free the nets. Many fishermen claim the kids as their own, and/or say they belong to a relative. It’s hard to know the truth. James is very intuitive and suspects a lie when he hears one, but he cannot just take a child. He must know the intention the child’s real family has before he can begin the heroic and tireless process of freeing them.
His program, Challenging Heights (founded thanks to a prize from Free The Slaves) goes into communities to raise awareness about trafficking in order to prevent it from happening further. Many parents who lose their children to the lake don’t realize their kids are enslaved. The parents are often fooled by fishermen into thinking their kids are getting an education and being cared for. This story is common to traffic children into the mining or sex industry. Once James collects enough information from families he sets out on into the villages to rescue the children. Once free, the kids spend 50 days in a shelter where they are rehabilitated, given three meals a day, introduced to educational tools, are shown constant love and allowed to play as children are meant to play. It’s a very carefully thought out process – especially the search and rescue part.
We hit the lake shortly after sunrise and already it was hot and teeming with children in canoes. James doesn’t hesitate to steer his boat up alongside any of them and start a conversation. His work is all about building trust and good relationships. If there is an adult on the boat, James acts as if he’s inquiring about the fishing using us as allies – explaining to us the unique and primitive way fish are caught on the lake. As the conversation continues he asks about the boat’s crew, pointing to the small children pulling in thorny fish, or the kid bailing out water, or the one diving beneath the surface to free the nets. Many fishermen claim the kids as their own, and/or say they belong to a relative. It’s hard to know the truth. James is very intuitive and suspects a lie when he hears one, but he cannot just take a child. He must know the intention the child’s real family has before he can begin the heroic and tireless process of freeing them.
His program, Challenging Heights (founded thanks to a prize from Free The Slaves) goes into communities to raise awareness about trafficking in order to prevent it from happening further. Many parents who lose their children to the lake don’t realize their kids are enslaved. The parents are often fooled by fishermen into thinking their kids are getting an education and being cared for. This story is common to traffic children into the mining or sex industry. Once James collects enough information from families he sets out on into the villages to rescue the children. Once free, the kids spend 50 days in a shelter where they are rehabilitated, given three meals a day, introduced to educational tools, are shown constant love and allowed to play as children are meant to play. It’s a very carefully thought out process – especially the search and rescue part.
We had a child on our list that we went into a village to find. Negotiating with the chief and the fisherman were not possible because they strangely disappeared when we arrived. We were a group of 8 that included 5 white faces. Anyone could see us coming for miles – especially people who live in huts in remote fishing villages. We found the boy we were looking for but others closed in on him and locked him away within minutes. We were literally standing helpless at a door that was dead-bolted locked. Many in the village were too scared to let him go for fear of what their owner might do when he came back. They said, “If you take him – you have to take all of us.”
James possesses characteristics of Fredrick Douglass, Indiana Jones and Mother Teresa combined and he is personal hero of mine. Working with he and his team alongside the compassionate and radical activists from FTS, my view of the world in my stance for equality has been blown wide open. Fears have diminished and possibilities are more present now than ever.
We have a lot of work to do.
Dear Mom and Dad,
An interesting thing happened while I was in Ghana. I used to have this mockingbird thing in foreign countries where my English would begin to break up to resemble the broken English of others – as if it would help them to understand me better. The same would happen in the English speaking countries where I might slip into some slight British or Aussie accent. Working with the rescued kids in Ghana – I noticed that inadequacy and insecurity disappeared over the course of my three days with them. By the time I left, and perhaps for the first time in my life, I spoke abroad using my own voice. I have no doubt I am a transformed man and I have no doubt that I will use MY voice - for good causes - for the rest of my life. Thanks for holding space for your children to do big things.
Love,
Jason
最后还有一句在马叔自爆照片后面的
More tales from Ghana to come...
PS昨天晚上看英格兰和美国直播的时候马叔也来直播了一下,我那时候兴奋得语无伦次,好不容易看见他在线啊..
James possesses characteristics of Fredrick Douglass, Indiana Jones and Mother Teresa combined and he is personal hero of mine. Working with he and his team alongside the compassionate and radical activists from FTS, my view of the world in my stance for equality has been blown wide open. Fears have diminished and possibilities are more present now than ever.
We have a lot of work to do.
Dear Mom and Dad,
An interesting thing happened while I was in Ghana. I used to have this mockingbird thing in foreign countries where my English would begin to break up to resemble the broken English of others – as if it would help them to understand me better. The same would happen in the English speaking countries where I might slip into some slight British or Aussie accent. Working with the rescued kids in Ghana – I noticed that inadequacy and insecurity disappeared over the course of my three days with them. By the time I left, and perhaps for the first time in my life, I spoke abroad using my own voice. I have no doubt I am a transformed man and I have no doubt that I will use MY voice - for good causes - for the rest of my life. Thanks for holding space for your children to do big things.
Love,
Jason
最后还有一句在马叔自爆照片后面的
More tales from Ghana to come...
PS昨天晚上看英格兰和美国直播的时候马叔也来直播了一下,我那时候兴奋得语无伦次,好不容易看见他在线啊..
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Greetings from Ghana
I chose to sit in the back of the van to keep others from getting dizzy or claustrophobic. Plus, I’m a little guy and don’t mind the shy legroom. I hadn’t anticipated the potholes though, and the back of the van was taking the brunt.
Told to be a 6-hour journey, it ended up somewhere around 12 or 13 - the final hours being on a stretch of road we were advised not to drive on after dark to avoid the pirates of the plains; hostile farmers who have a way of stopping traffic to steal your goods. We braved the road twice around midnight setting our intention on safety and success. I didn’t travel that far to be shut down by thieves. I was there to learn.
Almost immediately, the strength of my mentors became my own. I was amazed at how fast my perspective transformed because everyday leading up to my arrival in West Africa, all I really let myself hear were the possible dangers.
I flew into Ghana to spend 5 days on the ground with Free The Slaves– a not for profit organization committed to liberating slaves around the world, helping them sustain their freedom and rebuild their lives.
A slave is someone who is forced to work without pay; who is under threat or violence, and cannot walk away.
Yes, slavery still exists in the world. It doesn’t always appear as someone in shackles, an image we know from our history books, but everyday humans are bought, sold, stolen and even born into servitude. The current estimation for how many people in the world are still enslaved: 27 million.
This is James Kofi Annan. When he was 6 he was forced into slavery and didn’t manage to escape until he was 13. He worked for fishermen on Lake Volta doing the dangerous work of diving underwater to free the fishing nets from where they’d get caught on debris. On the lake today, 90% of the work is done by children and anywhere from 8-12 thousand of them are enslaved. Most of them are taken so young they believe the traffickers are their parents. Many of them are beaten. Most of them are malnourished. And quite a few don’t even know how old they are.
After James escaped, he taught himself to read and went on to receive his masters in communications. What James does today is what he wished someone had done for him as a child. He operates a rescue boat.
We hit the lake shortly after sunrise and already it was hot and teeming with children in canoes. James doesn’t hesitate to steer his boat up alongside any of them and start a conversation. His work is all about building trust and good relationships. If there is an adult on the boat, James acts as if he’s inquiring about the fishing using us as allies – explaining to us the unique and primitive way fish are caught on the lake. As the conversation continues he asks about the boat’s crew, pointing to the small children pulling in thorny fish, or the kid bailing out water, or the one diving beneath the surface to free the nets. Many fishermen claim the kids as their own, and/or say they belong to a relative. It’s hard to know the truth. James is very intuitive and suspects a lie when he hears one, but he cannot just take a child. He must know the intention the child’s real family has before he can begin the heroic and tireless process of freeing them.
His program, Challenging Heights (founded thanks to a prize from Free The Slaves) goes into communities to raise awareness about trafficking in order to prevent it from happening further. Many parents who lose their children to the lake don’t realize their kids are enslaved. The parents are often fooled by fishermen into thinking their kids are getting an education and being cared for. This story is common to traffic children into the mining or sex industry. Once James collects enough information from families he sets out on into the villages to rescue the children. Once free, the kids spend 50 days in a shelter where they are rehabilitated, given three meals a day, introduced to educational tools, are shown constant love and allowed to play as children are meant to play. It’s a very carefully thought out process – especially the search and rescue part.
We had a child on our list that we went into a village to find. Negotiating with the chief and the fisherman were not possible because they strangely disappeared when we arrived. We were a group of 8 that included 5 white faces. Anyone could see us coming for miles – especially people who live in huts in remote fishing villages. We found the boy we were looking for but others closed in on him and locked him away within minutes. We were literally standing helpless at a door that was dead-bolted locked. Many in the village were too scared to let him go for fear of what their owner might do when he came back. They said, “If you take him – you have to take all of us.”
James possesses characteristics of Fredrick Douglass, Indiana Jones and Mother Teresa combined and he is personal hero of mine. Working with he and his team alongside the compassionate and radical activists from FTS, my view of the world in my stance for equality has been blown wide open. Fears have diminished and possibilities are more present now than ever.
We have a lot of work to do.
Dear Mom and Dad,
An interesting thing happened while I was in Ghana. I used to have this mockingbird thing in foreign countries where my English would begin to break up to resemble the broken English of others – as if it would help them to understand me better. The same would happen in the English speaking countries where I might slip into some slight British or Aussie accent. Working with the rescued kids in Ghana – I noticed that inadequacy and insecurity disappeared over the course of my three days with them. By the time I left, and perhaps for the first time in my life, I spoke abroad using my own voice. I have no doubt I am a transformed man and I have no doubt that I will use MY voice - for good causes - for the rest of my life. Thanks for holding space for your children to do big things.
Love,
Jason
More tales from Ghana to come...
We had a child on our list that we went into a village to find. Negotiating with the chief and the fisherman were not possible because they strangely disappeared when we arrived. We were a group of 8 that included 5 white faces. Anyone could see us coming for miles – especially people who live in huts in remote fishing villages. We found the boy we were looking for but others closed in on him and locked him away within minutes. We were literally standing helpless at a door that was dead-bolted locked. Many in the village were too scared to let him go for fear of what their owner might do when he came back. They said, “If you take him – you have to take all of us.”
James possesses characteristics of Fredrick Douglass, Indiana Jones and Mother Teresa combined and he is personal hero of mine. Working with he and his team alongside the compassionate and radical activists from FTS, my view of the world in my stance for equality has been blown wide open. Fears have diminished and possibilities are more present now than ever.
We have a lot of work to do.
Dear Mom and Dad,
An interesting thing happened while I was in Ghana. I used to have this mockingbird thing in foreign countries where my English would begin to break up to resemble the broken English of others – as if it would help them to understand me better. The same would happen in the English speaking countries where I might slip into some slight British or Aussie accent. Working with the rescued kids in Ghana – I noticed that inadequacy and insecurity disappeared over the course of my three days with them. By the time I left, and perhaps for the first time in my life, I spoke abroad using my own voice. I have no doubt I am a transformed man and I have no doubt that I will use MY voice - for good causes - for the rest of my life. Thanks for holding space for your children to do big things.
Love,
Jason
More tales from Ghana to come...
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