As Ghana joined the rest of the world to commemorate the Day of the African Child this year, the Management of Barry Callebaut/Nyonkopa Cocoa Buying Limited has pledged their unflinching support to the protection of the rights of children in the cocoa supply chain.

The Day of the African Child is celebrated annually on the 16th of June with an aim to commemorate the SOWETO children's uprising of 1976, in defense of their rights to quality education.

Today, the Day of the African Child celebrates the realization of the rights of the child, in line with the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child. The purpose is also to raise awareness of the challenges that children face. One of the most pressing challenges facing African children today is a lack of access to digital technology.

To mark the day, the Management and staff of Barry Callebaut joined the chiefs and people of the Amormorso Community in the Bosome Freho District at a colorful durbar amidst other activities to engage with the community. This year’s celebration was under the theme, “The Rights of the Child in the Digital Environment".

In a speech, the Managing Director of Nyonkopa Cocoa Buying Limited, Mamadou Ly highlighted the collaboration between management of Barry Callebaut and relevant institutions in addressing and promoting child and human rights issues through sustainability programmes in line with community structures in cocoa communities, whiles pledging the company’s support to do more.

‘’At Nyonkopa Cocoa Buying Limited, we subscribe to the UNICEF Convention and are open to collaboration with other stakeholders to promote the welfare of the African child. It is our strong belief that with our community approach to addressing human rights-related issues, the children and women in our operational districts will be covered. Going forward, more school clubs, community child protection committees, and grievance mechanisms will be established across our supply chains to support communities in addressing human rights-related issues’’. He said.

Barry Callebaut’s vision of thriving cocoa communities is one in which all children can attend school and are protected from harmful work. In line with this, there is constant sensitization and engagement in communities through Child Protection Committees to raise awareness about child labor, to better understand its causes, and develop constructive solutions. As a strategic measure, a risk-based approach is applied to prioritize and deploy child protection interventions where it's needed the most, by embedding increased due diligence in engaging communities.

The District Coordinating Director for the Bosome Freho District, Samuel Kyei- Baffour for his part pledged the support of the assembly to audit and review policies and initiatives aimed at eliminating harmful practices affecting Ghanaian children, especially in cocoa communities. Highlighting on the Children’s Act of 1998 and its implementation, he noted that gaps in the fight against the rights of children will be addressed.

Prior to the celebration of the Day of the Africa Child, A reading Club started with 50 children (Nyonkopa Reading Club) was established in the Amormorso D.A school to encourage the effective reading of books among the students in the community. This was led by Barry Callebaut’s Human Rights Lead for Africa,Brigette Solange Mugiraneza, and the Country Sustainability Director for Barry Callebaut/Nyonkopa Cocoa Fred Frempong.

For his part, Chief of Amormorso Nana JH Acquah was thankful for the establishment of the reading club of which he was hopeful would go a long way to instill reading habits in the children of his community.

He commended the management of Nyonkopa for their constant engagements in the community especially on the issue of child labour. He further challenged the community members to make the education of their wards a priority especially in these times where digital transformation is vital. He however called for support for a functional ICT Lab and a mechanized borehole in the school to facilitate effective learning.

Management of Barry-Callebaut/Nyonkopa Cocoa also presented stationary worth thousands of cedis to support the Amormorso D. A Methodist School. Students of the school who could not hide their joy were thankful to Nyonkopa for the gesture and promised to read more books and concentrate on their education.