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Touring Africa to help rid it of child labour
Posted on 19-11-2008
“It is not poverty that breeds child labour, it is the other way round,” says Venkat Reddy, a child rights defender and social activist from India’s Mamidipudi Venkatarangaiya Foundation, better known as MV Foundation.
Acting on this principle, his organization has been able to bring more than 400 thousand children from labour to classroom over the last 17 years in several states of India, driving home the message that for kids, school is the best place to work.
The fact that MV Foundation’s founder Shantha Sinha is now sitting at the same level with government ministers as chairperson of the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights, speaks volumes about the impact and standing of the organization that has become a household name in India and a textbook example of successful rights-based vehicle for positive social change far beyond south Asian sub-continent.
Challenge
So it is no surprise that Mr. Reddy came as a natural choice for a delegation leader when the idea of the Stop Child Labour Africa Tour 2008 was first conceived. To be sure, the job was cut out for no beginner with Africa having the highest incidence of child labour in the world. According to International Labour Organization, up to 41 percent of all African children between the ages of 5 and 14 are involved in some form of economic activity, typically getting deprived of their right to education in the process.
“Precisely this is what perpetuates the vicious cycle of poverty. That’s why we say that every child out of school is a child labourer,” explains the seasoned social activist from Hyderabad. However, taking this concept to a continent where free education is still out of reach for many due to the hidden costs of schooling and children often times have to fend for themselves and their families to simply survive, might have seemed nothing short of revolutionary when the tour began in early October.
Clamor for education
Not to Mr. Reddy, though. And after a month spent on the road, interacting with various NGOs, trade unions, international agencies’ representatives and government officials in Morocco, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, Uganda and Kenya, he is more certain than ever – if anything - that in the fight against child labour there can be no compromises.
“There is no doubt that parental demand for education exists in Africa, do not believe those who claim the opposite is true. I know it because I have talked to the poorest of the poor and they told me they wanted their kids to go to school. They clearly see it as their ticket out of hell,” he says.
To prove the point, he tells a story of a beggar he met in the slums of Bahir Dar, Ethiopia. Totally dependable on the charity of passersby and surviving on the leftovers from a nearby restaurant, she did not hesitate to send her eight-year old daughter to school even if it meant having to put some money aside for a textbook.
“You see? She saw her daughter’s future, as well as her own, in the child’s education. It’s as simple as that,” says the tireless social mobiliser who together with his two colleagues from Nepal and Morocco typically rubbed shoulders with the ministers in the morning and talked to the common folk in the afternoon (or vice versa) for the duration of the tour.
Encouraging signs
There were encouraging signs all along the way that African partners are eager
to embrace some of the concepts that have been tested and proven worthwhile in India. One such moment of glory came during a workshop in Addis Ababa, where the battle was raging among the advocates of child work, including some ministerial officials, and their critics.
Deciding he had heard enough, a leader of one community-based organization from the city of Adama stood up and declared he would create a child labour free zone in his area. “Leave it to the communities, nothing is impossible on the grassroots level,” he said, drawing applause from the idealist wing in the room, with the loudest cheers coming – predictably – from Mr. Reddy, who is otherwise very much aware of the complex situation in Africa.
“I know the difficulties these people are facing are enormous compared to India. It is not even a day to day, but an hour to hour struggle. And sometimes they really have nowhere to turn, being essentially stateless societies with minimum intervention coming from above. But nevertheless, change is possible, in fact it is necessary, if we are serious about the commitments made as part of the Millennium Development Goals,” he says.
Inspiriration and energy
What Africa Tour clearly succeeded at was inspiring and energizing the movement against child labour in the respective countries as it progressed across the continent. There now seems to be a stronger sense of being in this fight together. At least, that much was clear from the words of some of the delegates invited to the Leadership Forum in Nairobi, which closed the tour in early November.
"Much as the countries may be different, the child labour issue is the same and the major benefits come from cross-fertilization of ideas with colleagues from India, Nepal, Morocco, Uganda, Ethiopia and Kenya," said Pascal Masocha of Coalition against Child Labour in Zimbabwe (CACLAZ).
Stephen Asiimwe of Uganda's Kids in Need (KIN) is in full agreement, saying that “forming an alliance and networking at national, regional and African level would be the best way to push the issue of child labour”.
Yes, we can
In fact the tour’s ending in Nairobi could not have come at a more opportune time. As Kenyans and their fellow Africans awoke to the news of Barack Obama’s victory in the US presidential elections, the air was thick with optimism and resolve to start changing things. Suddenly, putting an end to child labour and making sure no kid is left out of school seemed all but possible, even in a continent that suffers most from this scourge.
Never the one to miss an opportunity for a good publicity stunt, Venkat Reddy was there to capitalize on the moment. Taking the microphone to address the schoolchildren from several of Nairobi’s non-formal education facilities who filled many rows in the conference center hall, he asked them straight away:
“Can you help us stop child labour? Can you help us bring all of your friends who are working, and who are out of schools, to classrooms? Can you do it?”
It is doubtful that the Obama presidential campaign would dare to collect royalties for the chanting that followed, but it surely felt as if their boss was in the house at that particular moment.
Acting on this principle, his organization has been able to bring more than 400 thousand children from labour to classroom over the last 17 years in several states of India, driving home the message that for kids, school is the best place to work.
The fact that MV Foundation’s founder Shantha Sinha is now sitting at the same level with government ministers as chairperson of the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights, speaks volumes about the impact and standing of the organization that has become a household name in India and a textbook example of successful rights-based vehicle for positive social change far beyond south Asian sub-continent.
Challenge
So it is no surprise that Mr. Reddy came as a natural choice for a delegation leader when the idea of the Stop Child Labour Africa Tour 2008 was first conceived. To be sure, the job was cut out for no beginner with Africa having the highest incidence of child labour in the world. According to International Labour Organization, up to 41 percent of all African children between the ages of 5 and 14 are involved in some form of economic activity, typically getting deprived of their right to education in the process.
“Precisely this is what perpetuates the vicious cycle of poverty. That’s why we say that every child out of school is a child labourer,” explains the seasoned social activist from Hyderabad. However, taking this concept to a continent where free education is still out of reach for many due to the hidden costs of schooling and children often times have to fend for themselves and their families to simply survive, might have seemed nothing short of revolutionary when the tour began in early October.
Clamor for education
Not to Mr. Reddy, though. And after a month spent on the road, interacting with various NGOs, trade unions, international agencies’ representatives and government officials in Morocco, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, Uganda and Kenya, he is more certain than ever – if anything - that in the fight against child labour there can be no compromises.
“There is no doubt that parental demand for education exists in Africa, do not believe those who claim the opposite is true. I know it because I have talked to the poorest of the poor and they told me they wanted their kids to go to school. They clearly see it as their ticket out of hell,” he says.
To prove the point, he tells a story of a beggar he met in the slums of Bahir Dar, Ethiopia. Totally dependable on the charity of passersby and surviving on the leftovers from a nearby restaurant, she did not hesitate to send her eight-year old daughter to school even if it meant having to put some money aside for a textbook.
“You see? She saw her daughter’s future, as well as her own, in the child’s education. It’s as simple as that,” says the tireless social mobiliser who together with his two colleagues from Nepal and Morocco typically rubbed shoulders with the ministers in the morning and talked to the common folk in the afternoon (or vice versa) for the duration of the tour.
Encouraging signs
There were encouraging signs all along the way that African partners are eager
to embrace some of the concepts that have been tested and proven worthwhile in India. One such moment of glory came during a workshop in Addis Ababa, where the battle was raging among the advocates of child work, including some ministerial officials, and their critics.
Deciding he had heard enough, a leader of one community-based organization from the city of Adama stood up and declared he would create a child labour free zone in his area. “Leave it to the communities, nothing is impossible on the grassroots level,” he said, drawing applause from the idealist wing in the room, with the loudest cheers coming – predictably – from Mr. Reddy, who is otherwise very much aware of the complex situation in Africa.
“I know the difficulties these people are facing are enormous compared to India. It is not even a day to day, but an hour to hour struggle. And sometimes they really have nowhere to turn, being essentially stateless societies with minimum intervention coming from above. But nevertheless, change is possible, in fact it is necessary, if we are serious about the commitments made as part of the Millennium Development Goals,” he says.
Inspiriration and energy
What Africa Tour clearly succeeded at was inspiring and energizing the movement against child labour in the respective countries as it progressed across the continent. There now seems to be a stronger sense of being in this fight together. At least, that much was clear from the words of some of the delegates invited to the Leadership Forum in Nairobi, which closed the tour in early November.
"Much as the countries may be different, the child labour issue is the same and the major benefits come from cross-fertilization of ideas with colleagues from India, Nepal, Morocco, Uganda, Ethiopia and Kenya," said Pascal Masocha of Coalition against Child Labour in Zimbabwe (CACLAZ).
Stephen Asiimwe of Uganda's Kids in Need (KIN) is in full agreement, saying that “forming an alliance and networking at national, regional and African level would be the best way to push the issue of child labour”.
Yes, we can
In fact the tour’s ending in Nairobi could not have come at a more opportune time. As Kenyans and their fellow Africans awoke to the news of Barack Obama’s victory in the US presidential elections, the air was thick with optimism and resolve to start changing things. Suddenly, putting an end to child labour and making sure no kid is left out of school seemed all but possible, even in a continent that suffers most from this scourge.
Never the one to miss an opportunity for a good publicity stunt, Venkat Reddy was there to capitalize on the moment. Taking the microphone to address the schoolchildren from several of Nairobi’s non-formal education facilities who filled many rows in the conference center hall, he asked them straight away:
“Can you help us stop child labour? Can you help us bring all of your friends who are working, and who are out of schools, to classrooms? Can you do it?”
It is doubtful that the Obama presidential campaign would dare to collect royalties for the chanting that followed, but it surely felt as if their boss was in the house at that particular moment.
