Turning private tragedy into triumph, Pamela and Randy Cope started the Touch A Life Foundation nine years ago after the death of their 15-year-old son Jantsen. After an eye-opening visit to Vietnam and Cambodia, the Copes decided to use Jantsen’s Memorial Fund to give a voice to the exploited and neglected children of Southeast Asia. Working with underground, faith-based community organizations in communist Vietnam, Touch A Life has rescued hundreds of children from life on the streets of Saigon by placing them in group homes and funding their education.

The foundation has since expanded its efforts to the Lake Volta region of Ghana where thousands of children have been sold into slavery in the fishing industry. Touch A Life has educated tribal chiefs, some of the most important figures in Ghana, in its struggle to end human trafficking in the region. The Copes’ efforts in Ghana have earned them national recognition, with appearances on Oprah and in the pages of The New York Times.

Pamela Cope recently spoke to TakePart to discuss Touch A Life and the ongoing struggle to end child slavery and exploitation the world over.

How did the Touch a Life Foundation get its start and how has it grown since?

Pam Cope: The foundation was started nine years ago. We used memorial money from my son’s death. We started working in Vietnam first with street children that were at risk of being exploited or trafficked, and started renting apartments for them in Saigon. I met a Vietnamese woman on an airplane, and she had been doing mission work back and forth. She has been the organizer of our Vietnam program ever since. We work with the underground church there, and she recruits the staff and identifies the children that are at high-risk.

Our program started with 15 children and now it’s grown to 225. We support 77 orphans full-time and we’ve committed to long-term support. The remaining children are supported through the Empowerment Program. We pay for housing, whatever we can do to keep the families in tact. It’s a combination of support to keep the families together.

Touch A Life recently expanded to Ghana. How have operations been there?

PC: Two years ago, I read an article in The New York Times about Mark Cuadro (left), a six-year-old slave working in the fishing industry. When I read that article, I immediately started making phone calls to see how we could get involved.

I contacted George Achibra. He’s a real abolitionist in Ghana. We partnered with him and we’ve been working with him for 2 years. Our first rescue was seven children, and since then we’ve been able to rescue 50. Some of the children that we’ve worked with have been trafficked three or four times by their families. All of the children we’ve rescued in Ghana, we’ve committed to long-run support.

We work strictly with a Ghanaian team, and they go in with the village chiefs on very remote islands. They go in, educating the chiefs on the laws, and we just allow them to work one-on-one within their culture. We’re just getting them resources, getting them boats, building boarding schools for the children. What has happened is Lake Volta has been over-fished. It’s no longer profitable to have six to 10-year-old children working for you. They’re going in and just trying to be advocates for these kids. We work closely with social services tracking the parents and obtaining guardianship of the children we work with. Then we basically set them up into homes of 24 children with house parents, and they live as a family unit.

I have been there five times in two years. They are doing great, it’s really encouraging. These children know that they have been rescued, and they are very grateful for that. They are just craving an education and a chance to rebuild their lives.

What is the next step for the Touch A Life Foundation in Ghana?

PC: I’m not a person that gets hung up on numbers. We all should be advocates for exploited children, and we all should be standing in the gap for them.  We’re very commited to the children that we have and are in our care. Our vision is to raise up leaders and to raise up abolitionists. Our purpose is to raise these children and give them what they need. We just want to offer college education for the children that could rise up and take these leadership roles. Our goal is to slowly grow the program, and go very deep with these kids, not wide. Ghana is a country that’s not wanting to look like the rest of Africa. They’re wanting to move out of being just this African country that everyone dumps aid into. What is encouraging is we are working with many of the paramount chiefs. They have a lot of power and authority in this country. Our plan is that our abolitionist teams can be a real tipping point. They can say “this is unacceptable in my region,” and it would be done. If we educate the paramount chiefs, and get them behind this movement it could change the way Ghana looks.