James: From Slavery to Liberator

James  •  Ghana

James is our partner leader in Ghana. He started and runs Ghana’s largest child rescue organization, Challenging Heights, which has rescued over 1,800 children from slavery, all because of his own experience.

James was sold into slavery on Lake Volta when he was six years old. Lake Volta is the largest artificial lake in the world and the epicenter of the commercial fishing industry in Ghana, powered by child slaves. Because It costs less to buy a child than to buy a net, 21,000 children dive off boats into murky waters to untangle nets from trees, losing their eyes and losing their lives.

James worked without pay and often without enough food or shelter from 3 am til 8 pm, seven days a week. This went on for seven years. He saw girls and boys raped by slave masters almost every night. He was beaten with paddles, bitten by snakes, and saw children die of malaria and drowning. He wanted to escape every day. When James was thirteen, he did.

ON THE RISE

James escaped by hiding away in the trunk of a car while at a funeral that his slave master had brought him to. He got back to his hometown, but couldn’t read or write, so he started kindergarten as a teenager. By his final year in elementary school, he set a three-decades-long record for academic performance in that school.

Then he did what any top student might do: he graduated from university and became a banker at Barclays. But James’ normal route didn’t last for long. He quit his job to go back to the lake where he had been enslaved- to rescue the children still enslaved.

He has rescued 1,800 children from that lake so far. Many of them have started rescuing others. James has met Presidents, royalty, and Desmond Tutu, and has been honored worldwide. But all he cares about is getting every one of those 21,000 children off the lake.

Because of you, children rescued by James are able to go to school. They will have the opportunity to be like James.