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Child Rights Programme Now Set to Expand After Reaching More than 600,000 Children in India

by Save the Children | @devendratak | Save the Children - India
Thursday, 12 June 2014 11:29 GMT

Rao Narender Singh, Health Minister (Haryana) commits government support to the pioneering child rights initiative

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* Any views expressed in this article are those of the author and not of Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Chandigarh: On World Day Against Child Labour, Save the Children, its partners Breakthrough and Pratham, and the IKEA Foundation unveiled a Є7million programme to protect 790,000 children living in cotton communities in India. It is estimated that there are currently around 12.6 million child labourers in India and today’s announcement is the second phase of a long-term programme which aims to keep children out of cotton fields, and in classrooms where they can learn, play, grow and develop and be children.

During the second phase, Save the Children, Pratham and Breakthrough will work with panchayat leaders, farmers, teachers, families and Indian state officials in Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan, to provide children with access to quality education, improve teacher training, develop local child protection committees and school management committees and tackle issues like gender based discrimination.

An independent research study in 2008 revealed that prosperous Punjab has a large number of children working in the agriculture sector with an estimated 25% of them in cotton picking.  Rajasthan and Haryana are not far behind, with 23% and 16% of cotton picking labour being children.

Building on success

The expanded programme will build on the successes of Phase One which was started in 2009 in more than 1,800 villages in the states of Maharashtra and Gujarat. The major accomplishments of Phase One include:

  • more than 600,000 children directly reached through education and child protection programmes
  • over 150,000 children moved out of child labour and into classrooms
  • more than 10,000 migrant children moved back into their home communities
  • improved school enrollment rates in participating villages (see Fact Sheet)
  • nearly 2,000 teachers trained  (see Fact Sheet)
  • 1,866 Anganwadi (health, education) workers trained in teaching practices, giving each village in the programme a skilled community worker

Improving the situation for girls

This initiative will aim to tackle the deep rooted issue of gender based discrimination which starts even before birth. One of the areas of critical concern is of the declining child sex ratio in the states of Punjab and Haryana which are the lowest in the country - with figures of 834 and 846 per 1000 male children (as per 2011 census), respectively.  This initiative will help protect girls from these circumstances by establishing community groups that will champion girls’ rights and awareness of gender based discrimination and ensuring girl’s education. 

Better protections for migrant families

Migration of child workers is a major issue in the state of Rajasthan, with children leaving their homes to work in nearby cotton regions. Based on a successful model pioneered in Phase One, an inter-state migration network will be set up to identify migrant child workers and help them move back to their families, homes and communities.

“We know there is no quick-fix solution to ending child labour, but long–term approaches can yield impressive results,’’ Per Heggenes, CEO of IKEA Foundation explains. “The IKEA Foundation, with our partners, has been tackling this issue in India for nearly a decade. This new phase reinforces our long-term commitment and our desire to help millions more children out of child labour and back into the classrooms.”

Thomas Chandy, Save the Children’s CEO in India proudly stated “IKEA Foundation has been an invaluable partner to Save the Children to achieve immediate and lasting change in the lives of the most marginalized children. The expansion of the partnership means that many more children will attain the right to education, protection and development across India.”

ENDS

About IKEA Foundation

The IKEA Foundation aims to improve opportunities for children and youth in the world’s poorest communities by funding holistic, long-term programmes that can create substantial, lasting change. The Foundation works with strong strategic partners applying innovative approaches to achieve large-scale results in four fundamental areas of a child’s life: a place to call home; a healthy start in life; a quality education; and sustainable family income. Currently-funded programmes benefit an estimated 100 million children. Learn more at www.ikeafoundation.org

About Save the Children

Save the Children is the world’s leading independent organisation for children. We are 30 national organisations working together to deliver programmes in more than 120 countries around the world. Our vision is a world in which every child attains the right to survival, protection, development and participation. Our mission is to inspire breakthroughs in the way the world treats children, and to achieve immediate and lasting change in their lives.

Media Contacts:

Save the Children

Devendra Tak,

National Manager - Media and Communication

Email: d.tak@savethechildren.in Mob: +91-9811168488

IKEA Foundation

Chris Williams

Communications Manager

Email: chris.williams@ikeafoundation.org

Mob: +31 650 21 10 61

Factsheet – Successes from Phase 1

  1. Formation of community groups for child protection

Phase I of the programme successfully formed a child-protection committee and a children’s group in 880 villages in Gujarat and 986 villages in Maharashtra. Made up of parents and community members who take a keen interest in improving life for children, these are the frontline institutions for child protection. They are backed by district- and block-level (sub-district level) groups of child-protection specialists and representatives from the community and the government. Phase I formed core groups in four districts and 19 blocks of Gujarat and four districts and 25 blocks of Maharashtra.

  1. Increase in enrolment in schools

The activities of child-protection committees and school-management committees led to higher school enrolment in villages that took part in Phase 1. Among six-to-ten-year-old children, the enrolment rate in participating villages was 92%. That is 5% higher than the rate in villages outside the programme. Among 11-to-14-year-old children, the school enrolment rate in participating villages was 89%, 4% higher than the rate in villages outside the programme (Phase 1 evaluation report).

  1. Empowerment of communities to monitor schools and teachers

School-management committees in government and government-aided schools consist mainly of parents and are intended to give them a voice in the running of schools. School-management committees were formed and trained in over 1,850 schools in Phase I villages. Regular meetings were held in the schools, during which committee members prepared school development plans. The plans used government grants to build school infrastructure. The committees also discussed instances of irregular attendance of students and brought children back to school. When they found that children were missing school for work, committee members convinced parents to send them to school.

Phase I villages saw school-management committees, child-protection committees and children’s groups working together with schoolteachers to bring working children back to school.

  1. Reduction of inter-state migration of child labour

Initiatives under Phase I, along with other interventions by the state government and civil society organisations, contributed to reducing children’s migration from the state of Rajasthan to Gujarat to work in cottonseed production. A baseline household survey completed during Phase I, had estimated that 10,000 migrant children from Rajasthan worked as labourers in the Sabarkantha district of Gujarat. An impact assessment at the end of Phase I showed almost no migration of children into and out of the programme districts.

  1. Capacity building of anganwadi workers and teachers

During Phase I, schoolteachers and workers at anganwadis (childcare centres where children under six receive food, care and education) were trained in teaching methods that would make learning in the classroom interesting. An important initiative was Building a Learning Environment in Schools (BLES), an innovative way to design floors, walls, doors, windows, corridors and staircases to help children and teachers in the process of learning and teaching. BLES interventions were used in over 1,850 anganwadi centres in Gujarat and Maharashtra, and 150 schools in Maharashtra. Teachers and anganwadi workers were trained on their use. 

Over 1,850 anganwadi workers were also trained on classroom processes and teaching-learning through play. Over 1,700 schoolteachers were trained on creating an inclusive, learning-friendly environment which welcomes, nurtures and educates all children regardless of their gender, intellectual, social, economic or other characteristics. Over 1,850 schoolteachers were trained on leadership and motivational skills and on the Right to Education Act.

  1. Development of training material

Phase 1 developed high-quality training material for child-protection committees and school-management committees that has been used by the Gujarat and Maharashtra governments and by UNICEF. Anganwadi workers and schoolteachers have found training material on classroom processes and inclusive, learning-friendly environments useful in their classroom interactions. The government education department in Maharashtra used the training module for school-management committees to train over 7,000 committee members in 56 blocks.

 

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