I’ve now been volunteering at the Peace and Love Orphanage in Adenta, Ghana for about one month now. When I first arrived at the orphanage, I was greeted by 75 children. Last week when I walked in, there were only 40.
I walked around until I found the head Madame and I began asking her questions. She informed me that they sent home 35 children on a trial run with their parents.
A lot of the kids have families, but their families are either too poor or too lazy to take care of them. The owner and the head Madame of the orphanage decided to find out if the parents are now able to care for their children.
As soon as I found out about this trial run, I became very suspicious of the children being hired out to do domestic work for little, if any, pay.
My roommate, Cassandra, is Ghanaian and she is doing her senior thesis project on child domestic workers in Ghana. These children are either pushed onto the streets as hawkers or are kept in someone’s house doing house chores for long hours.
The parents of these pint-sized domestic workers are typically too poor to feed their children. It is for this reason that they can justify “selling” off their children to work for other people.
Most of these children are promised some sort of apprenticeship when they are older in exchange for the under-paid work they do. Sometimes they even have their own children selling things on the street to make money for themselves.
All it takes is a quick ride down the road to see many of these children out on the streets carrying large baskets on their heads, filled with things to sell. “Puuuurewatah!” you hear them yelling as they walk along, skillfully balancing their baskets filled with water sachets.
You hand them five pesewas – they hand you a small bag of water, and then they move on to the next trotro.
This is child labor in its lowest, ugliest form. These kids are sacrificing childhood for survival. They are braving the intense sub-Saharan sun from 5 a.m. until well past dinner.
Little girls, 7 to 8 years old, have bigger muscles than I do. They run alongside the quickly moving, dangerous trotros, dodging other vehicles and putting their lives at risk on a day-to-day basis.
Meanwhile, children across America are comfortably planted in front of a television screen watching cartoons and playing with their toys. My suspicions proved to be correct.
Portia, a girl who was living at the orphanage, is now selling water sachets at the station in Adenta. I nearly cried when I found out.
I’m sure others are hawking on the streets as well. I talked to the head Madame about this, with worry visibly showing in my face.
“This is life in Ghana,” she said. She then explained to me that when she was an infant, her father died.
Her mother had to raise her on her own, and so it was expected that the daughter work alongside her mother in the markets.
She said that is how her mom got money for her to go to school.
I seriously doubt that all of these children are going to school though. Upset about learning of Portia’s new life away from the orphanage, I wandered outside to play with some of the remaining children.
I was helping this little girl, Coco, make bead necklaces when I overheard a fight erupt between two of the younger boys.
I rushed over to where Michael and Rich were swinging at each other and I separated them. Michael ran off and Rich picked up some stones to throw at him.
I grabbed onto his tiny hand and sat him down on the concrete step. I told him that he needed to play nice and tried to calm him down. He pointed to his little arm and gave me one of those puppy dogs looks.
“I know Michael hit you, but I saw you hit him, too,” I said. “You have to play nice.” I gave him a hug and then turned around to go and help Coco with the necklaces.
I looked back just in time to see Rich climb up a slanted board that was leaning against the concrete step.
I yelled at him to get off, but there was no time. The board dropped to the ground, and Rich’s face smacked against the corner of the concrete step.
I rushed over to him and had him in my arms before he had even realized what happened. The tears started flowing, and so did the blood. I couldn’t see his teeth.
I panicked and ran up to some of the women who work there. They just sat there. I realized that if anything was going to be done about him, I would have to help him myself.
I raced him into the orphanage kitchen and sat him on the counter. Nikki, a British volunteer, came to my assistance immediately. We got him a bottle of water and had him spit out all the blood. I was relieved to see that he still had a full set of teeth.
His lip, however, was gashed rather deeply on the inside. I got a cold water sachet out of the fridge and held it up to his quivering lip in order to alleviate some of the swelling. He finally quit crying, but would not let me put him down for quite some time.
I usually try not to give in to their needy tantrums, but it’s so hard not to. I’ve never given so many hugs in my life.
I’m going to miss these kids terribly when June rolls around and I leave this place. If you would like to find out how you can help out with my orphanage project, just check out my blog at www.kimberfoli.blogspot.com.

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