SECRIFISE facilitated a learning visit by community leaders to a model community (Kpando- Torkor) along the Volta Lake, where anti-CLaT initiatives have proven successful and sustainable in reducing the practice to the barest minimum and where structures exist to systematically remove children from labour and other forms of bondage and reintegrate them into mainstream society. The learning visit offered an opportunity for participants to exchange knowledge on the Torkor model, including its main features and how it can be adapted and replicated in the project’s target source communities in the central region to prevent CLaT.
Highlights on the Torkor Model
The model is based on the recognition that informal workers in the rural economy are capable of addressing the challenges associated with their work, including the problem of child labour, when appropriately assisted. Thus, an inside-out approach is facilitated rather than an outside-in approach (that focuses on unstainable external agents). Informal workers are organized through meetings of common interests and shared values are reinforced. Such meetings motivate the workers to protect and assert their rights, reaffirm their responsibilities including the responsibility of proscribing child labour and trafficking and improve productivity.
The creation of a child labour free zone involves all stakeholders like teachers, parents, children, unions, community groups and local authorities. All stakeholders are convinced that child labour is unacceptable and work together to ensure all children go to school. Some key elements of the model include the following;
- Social mobilization (organizing community-based groups; informal workers)
- Sensitization and capacity building
- All children in school
- Community systems promote education
- Livelihood empowerment for the parent of children susceptible to child labour and trafficking
- Community participation in teacher motivation
- Child labour monitoring on the lake using security cameras
- Bridge-in schools
- Alternative labour supply for child labour (eg. training of divers)
