Background

The initiative for this project began in April 1996.  This arose out of the need to eliminate child labour in carpet units with a view to preventing their employment in future and at the same time  to provide for their needs i.e. education, health and nutrition.

A considerable amount of survey and research work was undertaken with parents of the children.  In addition, many campaigns were launched to publicize the need for this programme. 

The project is being undertaken in the Garwah District in the State of Jharkhand (North India), where originally approximately 11,000 children throughout the region work in carpet factories. Our current assessment is that there are now about 6,200 children in carpet factory units,  of which a proportion are released to attend school.

The project is essentially long term to enable the fundamental problem to be totally resolved.  It is therefore envisaged that the life of the project will be about ten years.  In that time,  it is also planned to assist with the generation of work for parents of the children in order to reduce their hardship.

There is now rapidly growing a strong and clear understanding by parents and their communities  (shared by government) that work is hazardous for their children and they are no longer being sent to work but to school, attending creative education centres.  The communities are directly involved with the centres and the swing in direction from work to education represents a major success for the project.

The early phase of the project was completed during  this year.  Children are becoming increasingly involved as a result of the changes achieved.  In the next stage of the project the intention is to develop a child driven approach towards the project by planning with the children in identifying and working through their problems and enabling them, through their forum initiatives, to deal with them. 

This is moving away from the centre based approach whereby the project undertook the identification and resolution of problems.

Special schools for carpet children

 For several years now,  schools have been set up in the villages where the children work.  They have also been set up in places where children are working. The strategy continues to be followed in the schools will increasingly become creative in their approach and provide alternative education to enable the working children to escape from their past and progress with their learning,  in a manner appropriate to them. The schools are equipped and teaching services provided, through the project.  Currently there are 30 schools operating and these serve approximately 1,400 children (bonded and carpet working).

Activities

The school’s syllabus seeks to provide basic education in literacy and numeracy for children from age 5 to 14 years.  But just as important, the syllabus also seeks to educate for living through creative learning geared to needs based on individual age and background.  A further expansion of the syllabus now includes vehicle maintenance, welding, carpentry and tailoring. They attend classes each working day for four hours.  In addition, the schools provide for sports and recreational activity and these have been improved during the year.

The programme also provides counselling and training services to deal with :

• Nutrition and diet

• Health

• Financial advice

• Parental education in family support

• Vocational training for parents and children

• Child unions

• Child courts of justice

• Vocational skill training

• Cooperatives for alternative employment

• Civil society awareness

• Teacher training

• Strengthening women parents forums

• Micro planning and taking action against child labour.

• Alternative vocational training for children to enable them to switch to safer employment.

• Community campaigning by the villagers.

• Continuing education through open schools (correspondence courses)

Good progress has been made during the year and some of the highlights are :

• 182 key village leaders were trained (in 30 villages)  to manage and monitor the management of the creative education centres.

• Community planning and action programmes are regular activities of the village panchayat and forums957 (792 boys and 165 girls) carpet children have enrolled in the available government primary schools as a result of the enrolment campaign led by the community. Another 102 children would have dropped out but for the campaign.

• Village forums now have regular meetings with government school teachers to monitor their progress.  The management and decision taking of the grassroots programmes has now largely moved from AID staff to the village forums.

• 28 government schools have improved their quality of teaching and there are many more children studying  due to the impact of the project.

• 30 carpet working children forums were involved in child labour and primary education campaigns.  This involvement strengthened the forums.

• Through the campaign on the right to education resulted in an extension of the government programme on Sarva Abiya ( i.e. Education for All, being the title of an international initiative) in seventeen schools situated in villages included in the project.

• Carpet working children organised a Garwah district wide campaign in 54 locations calling for the universal adoption of primary education.  This included :

  • Organising monthly processing of information collected from the 30 carpet working villages with the help and participation of children, parents and village leaders.

  • Organising State, District and Sub-district campaigns on the right to education through meetings, workshops and the media. These were attended by  carpet working children, parents and village leaders.  The campaigns had the full support of the Education Minister and the District Officials.

  • Production of : leaflets - songs - slogans - mike propaganda - wall writings - video shows   banner displays - child court events involving the participation of : children -  village leaders - loom owners - local authorities  for their active support in the total elimination of child labour. 

• Organised campaigns through the public media.  Also held  demonstrations and took  administrative action for the liberation of bonded labourers of Garwah in carpet units in Uttar Pradesh. The impact of these campaigns resulted in increased enrolment and retention of children in schools, improved quality of government schooling and increase in educational investment in the form of launching the Education for All (Sarva Siksha Abiyan) programme of the government in the projects villages. This increased the involvement of government, parents and village leaders in basic education. It also had a positive influence in the form of reducing child labour in carpet looms.