From ‘Yen Daakye’ Project to ‘Yen Daakye’ Movement
‘YÎn Daakye’, an Akan phrase for ‘Our Future’, is the name of a programme and movement which seeks to support community driven initiatives for the elimination of the worst  forms of child labour and forced labour in the  growing and marketing of cocoa in Ghana. It seeks to to do this through a child-centred development approach. The name was chosen to, on one hand, highlight for the communities that we work with the need and urgency to change their current labour practices if they want a future for their children and livelihoods. On the other hand, it is also meant to remind us as a nation of the common destiny we share with the farmers and children in these communities.  
 
Yen Daakye started as a two-year pilot project in November 2004 in 24 communities in three districts of Ghana. It is now being scaled up to a target of 500 communities in at least nine districts. It is a collaboration between the International Cocoa Initiative (ICI) which is funding it and the Participatory Development Associates (PDA) Ltd, the co-ordinating agency of the community level programme in Ghana.  PDA does works with local implementing partners at the district level. These are non-governmental organisations physically based in the districts.

At one of our regular review meetings, the partners (PDA and the Implementing Partners) decided that, considering the outcome of the pilot and its impact on both the partners and the communities, they should see the project as the beginning of a movement for social change in cocoa growing communities through a child-centred development approach.  This was the birth of Yen Daakye Movement (YDM).