Tamale Pilot
SMART Schools Program
THE TAMALE PILOT
We ran our human trafficking pilot project in Tamale, Northern region, Ghana in February and March 2025. Working in three Ghana Education Service junior high schools and their respective communities. We directly interacted with over 300 students as part of our schools program and 200 young girls and women in our Out-of-School Girls program.
The message from the program reached deep into the local communities. Students were transformed into advocates and women in the surrounding communities spread the message. We completed the pilot knowing that the project had been a huge success to the calls for more from Head Teachers, community leaders and Queen Mothers.
Delivered in Tamale, Northern Region
Feb/Mar 2025
- 3GES Junior High Schools
- 300Students Reached Directly
- 200Out-of-School Girls Reached
- 4Survivor-Led Community Sessions
- 3Student Performances Delivered to Peers
- Children’s Rights and Responsibilities
- Victims, Traffickers & Trusted Adults
- Online Safety, Reporting & Trafficking Risks
- Theatre-Based Learning
- Performance and Peer Advocacy
- Equipping Youth Advocates
HEP Program Manager Mariama Adam and Founder Angus Thomas sat down to reflect on the pilot project following its successful completion in March 2025.
- Tamale Where Hope Education Project works
Boundaries: Natural Earth and geoBoundaries (CC BY 4.0).
Why Tamale?
Tamale and the broader Northern Region of Ghana face significant challenges related to human trafficking. According to reports from the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) and UNICEF, the area experiences prevalent issues of adult and child sex trafficking. Young women with limited education and children are particularly vulnerable. Factors such as poverty, unemployment, economic and gender inequality, and lack of education contribute to the risk. These conditions make Tamale a critical focus area for anti-trafficking education and intervention efforts.
The Schools Pilot Project
The pilot was delivered across three public junior high schools in Tamale: St Paul’s JHS (Gumbihini), Bagabaga Annex JHS (Sagnarigu), and Darul Haddis JHS (New Gbolo).
The program combines traditional classroom teaching with on-the-feet learning through participatory theatre. It is structured around five weekly modules, each lasting approximately 75 minutes and delivered inside the Ghana Education Service timetable.
The first three modules cover the core teaching. The fourth is given over to students creating their own plays, drawing on what they have learned. In the fifth, students present their plays to the rest of the school. On the Saturday following the schools program, the students perform again - this time to their families, at the conclusion of the survivor-led community session.
You can read a blog article about each of the five Modules of the program and the handouts we left with students. Just click on any of the images to be taken to the corresponding summary article.
Module 1
Rights, Responsibilities and Trafficking Types
Module 2
Victims, Traffickers & Three Trusted Adults
Module 3
Online Safety, Reporting Trafficking
Module 4
Trafficking Theatre Preparation
Module 5
Trafficking Theatre Presentation
Handouts
Equipping youth advocates
Program Goals and Context
The pilot project was designed with the following goals:
- Equip students with the knowledge and confidence to recognise trafficking risks.
- Promote personal safety strategies through rights-based education.
- Encourage peer-to-peer learning and discussion.
- Provide a culturally relevant, accessible, and scalable education model.
By focusing on prevention through education, the Hope Education Project seeks to empower young people to become informed advocates for their own safety and the safety of their peers.
- Sessions were delivered by trained facilitators in a mix of English and Dagbani, tailored to student language needs.
- Interactive activities, role-play, storytelling, and participatory theatre were central to student engagement.
- Each session encouraged open dialogue, creativity, and critical thinking.
The content and delivery methods were carefully adapted to reflect the realities of Tamale’s predominantly Islamic, community-based context.
“I was at the salon getting my hair made when I heard a girl behind me say, ‘Be Smart! Be Strong! Say No When Things Feel Wrong!’ I turned around, thinking maybe she’d been in one of our sessions. But she hadn’t - her sister had. Her sister taught her the slogan at home.”
The Community Program
The Community Program was grounded in real stories and voices. Each session was co-led by our Program Manager, Mariama Adam, and our survivor advocate, Wunzooya, who spoke openly about her experience of being trafficked from Tamale to Saudi Arabia for domestic work. Together, they created a space where women could ask questions, share their own concerns, and connect trafficking risks to real life.
The program condenses the learnings from the SMART Schools program and shapes them around a survivor narrative drawn from our experience rescuing and repatriating trafficking victims, together with the testimony of our survivor advocate. Each session was presented to 24 girls and young women drawn from each school community, with a fourth bonus session held open to an audience of 120 women.
The group also watched a short film from our sister campaign, Stop Trafficking Africa, featuring survivors and the Director General of NAPTIP, translated into Dagbani to ensure it was fully understood. Whether in the smaller group sessions or the larger open event, the response was honest, emotional, and engaged.
During and after the community programs, some of the women disclosed that they had been trafficked in the past without realising. This is common among trafficking survivors, who often put their experience down to karma, a test from God, or sheer bad luck.
You can read a blog article about the Out-of-School Girls program and the open community event. Click on any of the images to be taken to the article.
Community Sessions
Pilot community programs in the school communities
Open Community Event
An open community event in New Gbolo, Tamale
Monitoring and Evaluation Approach
Monitoring and evaluation (M&E) processes were embedded throughout the pilot to measure program effectiveness.
M&E activities included:- Pre- and Post-Session Testing: Short quizzes assessed students’ understanding of key concepts before and after each module.
- Facilitator Observations: Facilitators recorded student engagement levels, confidence in discussions, and grasp of safety strategies.
- Focus Groups: Small group discussions with students and Teacher Patrons gathered feedback on content relevance, language accessibility, and perceived usefulness.
The focus of M&E was to assess both immediate knowledge gains and qualitative indicators such as changes in student confidence, critical thinking, and willingness to share learning with peers and family.
Early Outcomes
While a full impact evaluation will be completed after extended delivery, early observations from the pilot were encouraging:
- Students demonstrated clear knowledge gains in identifying trafficking risks and grooming tactics.
- Many students were able to confidently describe trusted adults they would approach if they felt unsafe.
- Digital safety concepts, including managing friend requests and online messages, resonated strongly, particularly with older students.
- Peer discussion flourished; students frequently applied learning points to hypothetical or real community examples.
- Students expressed strong pride and excitement when receiving their printed handouts, often sharing them at home and discussing content with family members.
We await the findings from our research team, who are currently analysing the monitoring and evaluation data collected during the pilot. Their insights will help us strengthen and refine the curriculum for future delivery. While the pilot provided valuable learning across all aspects of the program, it also confirmed what we had hoped – our approach is effective, culturally relevant, and deeply needed. Early feedback from students, teachers, and community participants strongly supports the continued rollout of the Hope Education Project human trafficking program.
Next Steps
The pilot delivery of the Hope Education Project has laid a strong foundation for future expansion. Building on the success of the pilot, the program will continue to refine content, delivery methods, and evaluation processes. Future phases will aim to:
Expand the SMART Schools Program to additional schools in the Tamale area and beyond.
Deepen community engagement through the Community Program, targeting out-of-school girls and their families.
Strengthen partnerships with local education authorities and child protection agencies.
The Hope Education Project remains committed to empowering young people with the knowledge, skills, and confidence they need to stay safe and to lead conversations about trafficking prevention within their communities.