Introduction
Kids in Need (KIN) is a non-governmental organization that works to address challenging child rights issues. The organization started a decade ago as a street children’s program due to the increasing numbers of children on the street.

Since then the organization runs a wide range of community programs: Youth friendly rehabilitation centres, community outreach and counselling, public education, advocacy, health programs, income generating projects, skills training, formal education for ex child labourers, juvenile justice and social protection schemes.

Working with ILO-IPEC since 1998, KIN has gained a deeper understanding of the complexity surrounding child labour. With support from IPEC, KIN started building coalitions with communities in order to increase efforts to combat child labour. This innovation has been documented as a good practice and recommended for expansion and emulation. KIN strives to build stronger coalitions using this experience.

The Namatala experience

“When KIN invited us local leaders from Namatala to attend a child labour workshop in Kampala, we did not think it really concerned us. It was after the training that we started appreciating that our District had serious child labour problems and that we had to do a lot as a community.

When we left that workshop, we constantly found ourselves solving child labour problems in our area. We trained our fellow community members and together started identifying victims and putting them in Universal Primary Education schools. With more members joining such as the District labour officer, probation officer, police, school administration etc, we want to make child labour totally illegal. This will only happen when there are more concrete actions from communities.”

- James Okwi: KIN coalition community member at an ILO-IPEC self-assessment workshop in Mukono, Uganda.