Volta Resilient Foundation

Liberate Me

Liberate Me is our Anti-child trafficking and forced labor project which ensures children are rescued, rehabilitated, and given educational opportunity to rebuild their life.

Mission

As a sponsor of a survivor of forced labor trafficking and abuse, we select from among the children who have been rescued those who are in the worst situations and who are at the greatest risk of being re-trafficked due to negligent families. Many of our children have families who can also be rehabilitated, but in some cases where children are orphaned or have families bent on re-trafficking the child, we will intervene with the comprehensive Volta Resilient Foundation Scholars program to allow for that individual to achieve their full potential and ensure future abuse never occurs. The Volta Resilient Foundation Scholars program provides individual survivors with individual sponsors. Sponsorship includes supporting all their basic and welfare needs, counseling, boarding school when necessary, and private schooling. Sponsorship is comprehensive and continuous through university or technical school. Each term sponsors receive reports about their students and have the opportunity to write to them.

Support the welfare and education of a neglected and needy student

Case Management

The Liberate Me Program engages entire communities behaviorally and psychologically to establish the anti-trafficking mentality to report about returned children and to return the children through the community lines of communication. We have partnered with multiple communities to carry out this community-wide anti-trafficking and abuse method to provide a safety net for the children of the entire community. (Link to Liberate Me report). Once a child is rescued, they are rehabilitated during a month-long stay at our shelter and provided with human rights and legal education, emotional wellbeing training, and sexual and reproductive health training to ensure children are empowered to prevent repeat abuse. They are also provided with basic needs, education, and the school supplies necessary to return to their homes and communities and be fully reintegrated with family members who have also been given human rights and trauma-informed training to understand the legal implications of child labor, and trafficking, and abuse.

Once the child is fully reintegrated and enrolled in school we are committed to supporting them through school fees and supplies and developing the school as a key institution for community growth. This may mean providing quarterly furniture, infrastructure, or other needs in the school to ensure all students receive the benefits of being an anti-trafficking partner school and community.

It costs $100 monthly to support a partner school, therefore if 10 people sponsor monthly at $10 a month, or if 5 people sponsor at $20 a month an entire school and all its children who live in a community earmarked as a trafficking and abuse hotspot are safeguarded and provided the support they need to stay in their communities and provide the development it desperately needs.

VRF Rehabilitation Shelter

Report cases of trafficking and forced labor please call +233 (0) 559 223 445

VRF Shelter's Path To Healing And Reintegration

In December 2022 we opened a temporary rehabilitation shelter called the ‘VRF Shelter’ for children from Ada and adjacent communities. The shelter is fully equipped to care for 15-20 children both male and female, with separated living quarters and two (2) live-in house ‘parents’ who are trained in mental health and trauma behavior to help meet the needs of every child. There are four (4) bedrooms in the downstairs unit and two (2) bathrooms, this will be designated for the boys. The upstairs unit has three (3) bedrooms and two (2) bathrooms and is designated for girls. The Ada District Hospital will care for all the health needs of the survivors and is only 5 km from the VRF Shelter.

All our Liberate Me programs include trauma informed mentorship, culture troupe, education, fun and activities, basic needs, and more. The rehabilitation curriculum includes emotional and mental health, human rights, sexual and reproductive health, and life reflection & planning. Trained and experienced staff will carry out the rehabilitation with strict oversight and transparent reporting. During the rehabilitation, the average day is structured much like a school day, the children don their uniforms, bring their bags and sit at desks to learn from a teacher. The schedule also integrates a lot of rest and play so that the childhood is restored.

For each child we identify specific goals and criteria for them and their families to reach before leaving the shelter, and through careful evaluation, critical care, and many mentorship sessions the child will graduate from the program and be re-integrated with their families. In efforts to end the cycle of trafficking and forced labor VRF also provides a mentorship program to the family of the survivor which includes: human rights and law, economics, and sexual and reproductive health, in addition to a personalized program for each family. For qualifying families, a business startup kit will be provided for them to begin doing a business of their choosing after being trained by the VRF Smart Business Program.

Ada Child Protection Coalition

Mission and Vision

VRF has been instrumental in establishing the Ada Child Protection Coalition which aims to bring together a cross section of community stakeholders, government agencies, and experts with the goal of ending all forms of child abuse including forced labor, trafficking, sexual abuse, and child marriage. The ACPC meets quarterly for training and workshops, and continuously remains in touch through shared platforms for reporting and supporting one another in the work to protect all children. The vision of the Ada Child Protection Coalition is to build up systems of child protection within every community and to work together to establish lines of communications for reporting, investigation, intervention, rehabilitation, and reintegration. The coalition seeks to establish a solid evidence base of data and reports to substantiate child abuse and trafficking in order to bring awareness to methods of prevention.

Youth Apprenticeship

Volta Resilient Foundation learned early on that not all children can be reintegrated into basic school at their education level. This is because some children are trafficked and in forced labor for 5 to 15 years meaning they are returned to their community almost as adults with little to no basic education. When they enter school between 14 to 19 years of age and are in class with very young children, they often feel insecure, uncomfortable, and can be mocked by their juniors. Especially for older boys this can feel like a losing solution and often leads to them dropping out to enter the workforce as very poorly paid unskilled laborers, or to go back to their work as a trafficked victim to perpetuate the same abuses on other children.

To stop this result Volta Resilient Foundation has put in place community-based apprenticeships by partnering with local electricians, mechanics, plumbers, metal workers, carpenters, seamstresses , and other skilled practitioners to set up a youth apprenticeship program for survivors. Through this program we have partnered with over 30 practitioners of many professions from many parts of Ada to provide the necessary training for survivors to become proficient in a skill allowing them to increase their earning and business potential. In addition to apprenticeship, the survivors are enrolled in a business entrepreneurship course led by Volta Resilient Foundation staff which incorporates topics such as financial literacy, business planning, and strategy.