Rosanne and Mark Rosen are the Founders of GlobalGrandparenting.

We returned home filled with hope after witnessing the wonderful rescue of 22 trafficked children from the remote islands in Ghana’s Lake Volta.  After a firsthand look at the coordinated efforts of dedicated local volunteers in the lakeside community of Kete Krachi and the International Organization of Migration, we know more children can and will be rescued.

As a result of extreme poverty, the 19 rescued boys, ages 6 through 15, had been sold into servitude in many cases by their parents for meager sums of money to fishing masters for whom they would work in exchange for food and shelter.  The reality was grueling hours of labor, dangerous dives setting fishing nets under water, frequent beatings, one meal a day, no chance to attend school and often little financial remittance to parents. 
    
Of the three girls rescued, Peace, age 7, was the youngest.  Girls’ tasks included helping the mistress in their mud-dried homes, cooking, taking care of other children, smoking fish and then carrying heavy baskets of them to the markets on shore for sale.  The fear and tentativeness evident among the girls, particularly Peace, quietly indicated the probability of abuse.
    
Fortunately the rescue project includes education of parents, tribal chiefs and masters about the fundamental wrong of trafficking and teaches better ways to fish without using child labor.  These efforts along with the promise of new fishing nets and the threat of future punishment should masters buy other children provide the real possibility of eliminating further trafficking among specific tribes. 
    
Following a 3 and a half month stay in a secure rehabilitation center outside of Accra where the children receive medical attention, psychological counseling and educational testing, they are reunited with their parents under sufficient and prolonged supervision.  Financial assistance is provided to cover the care and educational costs of the trafficked children and interest free loans are made available to parents to assist them in starting small businesses or buying livestock.
    
We hope you will join GlobalGrandparenting in giving children back their childhood and providing a sustained effort to change their lives. 
    
Seeing childish smiles bud after rescue and feeling appreciative, affectionate hugs when we said goodbye will remain with us forever.

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Next on the Delhi tour we visited Naz Foundation, an extraordinary organization focusing on HIV/AIDs. The program include includes prevention, care and advocacy, and is one of the few organizations working on the controversial issue of MSM (Men having sex with Men), since workers in this field can be arrested under an archaic law dating back to British rule. The home cares for 34 HIV positive orphans aged 10 months to 14 years, and is the only co-ed residential facility for children, which allows siblings to stay together and preserve the family they have left. The Hindi Christmas pageant the children put on could not have been more of a touching experience. The kids created this play (including the costumes) with no adult help. One child made quite an impressive Santa Claus costume out of his inside out jacket (red lining on the outside) and pulled apart cotton balls. I will never forget the twelve year old Indian angel in a white dress yelling at Mary (in Hindi) that she would have a son, and Mary saying “that’s impossible, I’m not even married!” But what was most touching was the children’s behavior towards Saima and me. They were incredibly affectionate and without any signs of stigma or shame that they would have in most parts of the world. They urged us to pick them up, one after another. It struck me that these children lack two of the most important things that children need- family and good health– yet they are some of the most happy and loving children I have ever met. We urged Naz Foundation to put this project up on our site, so stay tuned.

And, to end the evening, a wonderful Indian vegetarian meal. So, a very curry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

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This time last year I was bundling up the kids to walk home through the snow after Christmas Eve candlelight church service, Silent Night still echoing in my head. Never did I expect my next Christmas would be in New Delhi instead of New England. Funny what life throws at you.

I’ve had a lot of blessings this year (it’s hard to have even a Christmas in India without thinking of one’s blessings). A big one of which is that I started a job at GlobalGiving. With a little more than six weeks of work under my belt I couldn’t resist the opportunity to check out some of these amazing projects I have read so much about and meet the impressive people behind them. Having spent the better part of my career in international development, I easily become frustrated with the short descriptions of the projects on our site. They give the basics, but it is hard to really feel the difference they are making. I want to learn so much more about them. What makes these people want to start such projects? What is an example of a story of someone’s life that was completely turned around as a result of this project? What was a failure, and how did that project leader learn from it and, as a result, improve the program? And, the biggest question of all- SO WHAT?? I don’t ask this in a callous manner, but rather–what is the greater good that this project is creating—what is the systemic change? Such big ideas are hard to sum up in a 200 character paragraph, and even if the project leader wrote diatribes of text, would we really read it when there are 450 other projects on the site to explore? So, I’ve come to India to help us at GlobalGiving become better storytellers and help the project leaders learn how to tell their stories more effectively.

Here I am, with my lovely colleague Saima, the ideal traveling companion who speaks Hindi, has memorized almost all of the GlobalGiving projects and does not snore, which is important during a 14 hour flight. Today we visited two projects. Sharan is in a difficult situation. Although the organization’s programs for adult drug abusers (started 20 years ago) are successfully gaining funds and becoming integrated into government services, their program for child drug rehabilitation is closing due to lack of funds. Rajiv, the Director, expressed his sorrow that these children who have such a complex set of challenges are losing the only sense of home and family they have. We met the last five boys still living at the center, and were moved by their accomplishments of seeking to get off drugs in the first place, surviving detox and the reticence they are now experiencing about leaving the center. This project is now seeking funds to place these boys with other organizations to finish their schooling and develop skills for the workplace.

More tomorrow, in my Christmas Day post.

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