Yaw Amoah is a cocoa farmer in Ayokoa, a cocoa-growing community in Ghana. He lives with his wife and four children who are aged from four to sixteen years. They all make their livelihood from a two and half acre cocoa farm, which is about 6 miles away from their home.
According to Yaw, ‘’It is sometimes a bit challenging to provide for the needs of all our children, especially during the lean season when money is scarce. We sometimes walk the long distance to the farm with the children. Other times, we stop them from going to school so they can help us with the farm work. This was all because we didn’t have the money to hire labourers to assist us.”
With the introduction of the Nestle Child labour Monitoring and Remediation System (CLMRS) in his community. Yaw was identified by the CLMRS as one of the farmers whose children were engaged in child labour. As part of the remediation measures, he has been supported, along with other farmers in a group, to cultivate tiger nuts. They were given all that they needed to start the farm which included agrochemicals, seeds, training on good agronomic practices and continuous supervision from the District Department of Agriculture in September 2018. The group just harvested the first batch of nuts from their farm. The proceeds from the sale will be shared among the members. Two of his children also received educational materials during the remediation.
“Now, I have a second source of income in the tiger nut farm which will help me in providing for the needs of my children. This means that they can now concentrate on their education.”
