Challenging Heights provides financial support to fisherfolks

Challenging Heights has provided financial support, valued at GH¢250,000, to 368 fishermen in Winneba to help them cope with the impact of this year’s fishing closed season.

The beneficiaries were carefully selected from among those who are caregivers of children of school age, and whose sources of income have seized as a result of the closed season. 

Beneficiaries of this support received cash amount ranging between GH¢500 and GH¢1,000 per the needs of the individuals.

Challenging Heights, a non-governmental organisation (NGO) explained that, “this cash support is meant for various purposes including the repair of fishing gears, support their children’s education, and for the women in the value chain to engage in petty trading”. 

A couple of weeks ago, the minister of fisheries and aqua culture announced the suspension of all fishing activities for the month of July, rendering fisherfolks within the fishing value-chain with no alternative income sources for the period. 

Presenting the financial packages to the beneficiaries, the president of Challenging Heights, James Kofi Annan, expressed his displeasure with the government for not doing enough to mitigate the impact of the closed season on the fishermen and fishmongers whose livelihoods were being affected. 

He said artisanal fishing directly employed more than 200,000, and over 2.2 million people in the fishing value-chain. 

“Asking all these men and women not to work for four weeks without providing appropriate mitigation makes the fishermen more vulnerable to poverty, and consequently affects the education of their children,” Mr Annan argued. 

Challenging Heights is a Ghanaian anti-slavery/human trafficking organisation that supports vulnerable fishing and farming communities in 12 out of the 16 regions in the country. 

This year, the organisation has, so far, supported 350 SHS students, 245 TVET students, and 235 tertiary students across the country. 

“Challenging Heights also supported 320 farmers with farm inputs during the farming season, and is currently supporting over 500 children who have been rescued from worst forms of child labour, and trafficking situations, as well as over 600 women in various livelihoods programmes. 

“We have since the inception of this NGO, rescued, supported several thousands of children, women and youth out of poverty and out of various vulnerabilities.

Challenging Heights also engages in advocacy at different levels within Ghana,” Mr Annan explained.

A couple of years ago, the government introduced the annual fishing closed season, with the purpose of improving the fish stock in the nation’s marine waters. 

Fishermen and fishmongers have lamented the untold hardship the closed season policy has plunged them into.

In view of the consequences of the closed season, Challenging Heights is calling on Ghana to provide appropriate insurance packages for the affected individuals whose livelihoods depend on the fishing value-chain.