Manjari helps workers register for benefits

Field updates

The pictures were striking. Millions of workers streamed out of cities, setting off to walk hundreds of miles back to their home village, just days and hours ahead of the Indian Government’s lockdown and travel ban to combat the spread of Covid. Writ large in the midst of this exodus in 2020 was the huge impact of having an unregistered workforce.

Man sits at computer, registering Indian women workers for their E-Shram card.
Women workers receiving help to register for their e-Shramik card, giving them access to employment benefits and social security.

Registration gives access to social security. Without it, a worker has no state support when times get hard. This is a situation with which Manjari, the NGO that works on the ground in the cobble-producing area of Budhpura, Rajasthan, has been familiar for many years. Whether migrants or locals, the workers are not, for the most part, registered.

Improving labour conditions for all is a vital part of creating Child Labour Free Zones. To this end, Manjari has been involved in discussions with yard owners for many years over the need to register workers so that they can access their employment rights.

Registering the e-Shramik card

The e-Shramik card—a new Government scheme—has given Manjari a welcome step forward. Set up last year to give each worker a unique 12-digit number, it allows access to employment benefits and social security.

However, for those without the latest digital devices or without access to the internet at all, registration can be difficult. Others have stepped in to fill the gap. “People are trying to get money out of it,” says Manish. “It should cost 20 to 30 rupees, but now they are charging 200 to 300 rupees.”

To help workers, Manjari has established a registration centre with Internet access, a printer and a laminating machine. “We have reached out to women in the self-help groups, for example,” he says, “and in only a few days we made a hundred cards.”

This is interesting work for Manjari, who are seeing workers who have not come forward before. It’s also very intensive. Going door to door in ten villages so far, they have ensured that, in each, every household has one. A new registration camp will shortly be set up in nearby Sukhpura. “We hope to reach all workers in the area,” he adds.

A complication is that the registration needs to be linked to a person’s Aadhaar card—essentially, an identity card that helps with access to banking and mobile phone services, among other things.

“And linking the e-Shram to their employer is very important,” says Manish. “When they get harmed or there are violations at the workplace, we need to know in which workplace they are.”

Working with businesses

Although the e-Shram is a welcome development, it’s only part of the answer. “Local businesses are maintaining their distance,” explains Manish. “Although we’ve been here for 10 to 12 years now, they’re not coming forward.”

This is not to say that much has not been achieved. One yard has an electronic machine which logs on workers via facial recognition or a thumbprint. Workers are increasingly recognising the benefits of formal work practices like this because it gives them a record of the hours they’ve worked. And informal education centres in cobbleyards have resulted in a good number of young children going on to enrol in school.

“We need to develop greater trust between all the stakeholders,” says Manish. “They become defensive. But we are not blaming them for anything, just asking for a little more—for systems that make sure every child is going to school, every worker has their rights.”

The power of positive pressure

This is where companies like London Stone and Brachot, supporters of No Child Left Behind, can add their voice. “We need positive pressure from international companies,” says Manish, “so we can make it clear that there is no harm if every child is going to school, and that having everyone registered in no way impacts the business.”

To that end London Stone and Brachot will be approaching their suppliers to encourage registration. This is something that everyone involved with landscaping can help with, whether you’re having a new garden designed, are designing one, building one, or importing landscaping materials. Show it matters how the materials are produced. “Many companies based in Europe don’t know the details of everyone in their supply chain,” says Manish.

Just start asking questions. And join us in applying positive pressure for change.

Continue Reading

Manjari Learning Spaces aid lockdown learning deficit

Field updates

Two years of disruption have taken their toll on education. New community spaces aim to help children catch up.

Group of children standing in front of blue-walled building with red writing that says Manjari Learning Space in Indian script.
Children at Sukhpura Village. The writing on the wall says Manjari Learning Space.

In Stemming the Return to Child Labour we explained the impact of long lockdowns on education, and reported how Manjari, the NGO that works in Budhpura and surrounding villages, has delivered educational resources to villages and workplaces to help fill the gap resulting from school closures.

At the beginning of 2022, schools were open for a time, but then closed again. The on/off availability of the classroom is very disruptive. Manjari’s approach has evolved during the various phases of Covid and the intention is to continue with the assistance provided, even if schools reopen permanently. There is much catching-up to do, if the children are to make up for the lost learning of the last two years.

Interior of pink-walled room with numbers and letters painted on for educational purposes
Walls of the new community centres double as educational resources.

To that end, three community spaces have been created, each in a different village. One is a dedicated anganwadi—an Early Childhood Centre. These centres, the first of which were established by the government over forty years ago, provide basic healthcare in rural villages, and generally offer contraceptive advice, nutritional supplements and education, as well as pre-school activities. An anganwadi is, essentially, a government responsibility. However, as Manjari’s Manish Singh explains, “Most are not appropriate to the needs of children far from habitation, so Manjari has provided support.”

Teachers have been brought in too. “And they are doing a proper job,” says Manish, who has experience of the sometimes erratic teaching methods in rural centres, “with lesson plans. We have minimum learning levels, and a daily diary of progress.”

Pink-washed, single-storey building, an Early Childhood Care and Development Centre with man standing in doorway
An Early Childhood Care and Development Centre supported by the project.

There’s no doubt that the pandemic has had a huge effect, both on schooling and on the previous advances made in getting children into education. However, with the need to give more help to families in the surrounding areas, Manjari’s physical presence in villages has become more visible, which is a positive step in the journey to Child Labour Free Zones.

Continue Reading

Encouraging Ethical Sourcing

Responsible business

Indian cobble yard. Piles of stone and women picking through it

Being an ethical supplier is more than a trademark for London Stone. Since 2015, the supplier has been working with organisation No Child Left Behind to help eradicate child labour in Budhpura, Rajasthan, India, so that the children who live there can enjoy full-time education.

“This region of Rajasthan is the world centre of sandstone sett production, a sector that’s highly susceptible to child labour. There was a growing issue in the supply chain because of this,” says Steven Walley, managing director of London Stone.

The pandemic has only worsened the problem of child labour in Budhpura; with no school for more than 18 months, and nothing to do, children have drifted back to work. “Children are migrating back towards these work environments, after we’ve spent years trying to move them towards education. We’re effectively starting again,” admits Steven.

No Child Left Behind meeting in Budhpura. Men sitting on floor around edge of room.
London Stone’s Steve Walley at a meeting in Budhpura, 2018.

No Child Left Behind tackles a host of other issues in the area, including H&S, gender equality and supporting workers to have their own bank accounts. For London Stone and other European suppliers involved in the No Child Left Behind project, such as stoneasy.com and Beltrami, it’s important that all the people within their supply chains are looked after, and not just with financial donations. “We see our supply chain as an extension of our company,” explains Steve. “It’s important that we value the people within our supply chain as much as we value our customers and our staff within London Stone – we feel responsible as much as we can be for their wellbeing.”

London Stone also encourages its suppliers within India to support the No Child Left Behind project.  In many cases, Indian suppliers simply adding their leverage can make a massive difference to how effective a project can be.

A dusty lane between buildings and trees, Budhpura, Rajasthan.
Budhpura is in a very rural area of Rajasthan.

“The more people who apply pressure to make changes, the more chance there is of the changes being made. Invariably, our Indian suppliers are supplying their products to many other suppliers across the world and if all these suppliers came together to put pressure on the Indian suppliers, we would see a lot of these supply-chain issues addressed very quickly. This is more helpful than simply walking away from producers – this would worsen problems for workers, as their income would dry up,” says Steve.

“And we can raise awareness of the issue in the UK. We can educate landscapers, garden designers and our retail clients about the importance of understanding what they’re buying and understanding the supply chain. Customers can show their support by buying from companies who take supply-chain ethics seriously.”

Women sitting spaced apart in rows on dusty ground receiving instructions.
Covid safety training for women workers.

Lots of people ask if there are any types of certification for ethical sourcing.  “There are, but certification isn’t always the most useful tool,” says Steve. “Certification doesn’t always solve the problem because it’s effectively a badge – just because a badge says your business is compliant today, who is to say that the same business will be compliant tomorrow?”

London Stone takes the opportunity, on its regular buying missions, to visit Manjari, the NGO running the No Child Left Behind Project in Budhpura.  “It’s always inspiring to see how improvements are progressing and to try and gain a deeper understanding of the issues and challenges in Budhpura,” says Steve.  “But what we need are more UK suppliers to get involved, increasing our leverage on the supply chain.” 

To find out how to get involved with the work of No Child Left Behind, please get in contact with Steve at: steven@londonstone.co.uk.

Cover of October 2021 edition of Pro Landscaper magazine.

This article first appeared in the October 2021 edition of Pro Landscaper.

Read Celebrating Budhpura! for more about the history of No Child Left Behind.

Continue Reading

No Child Left Behind: Stemming the Return to Child Labour as Covid Keeps Schools Closed

General

Vu que les écoles sont fermées, les enfants font leurs bancs d'école comme ils peuvent.

Covid restrictions have stopped India’s children going to school. In Budhpura, Manjari is bringing school to the children.

It’s no secret that the Covid pandemic has hit India hard. And beyond the news of overwhelmed hospitals, oxygen shortages, and the high death count, are other stories—of the potential long-term impact of this crisis on the country’s children.

Covid and school closures

Last year, over one and a half million elementary and secondary schools in India closed, to try to limit the spread of the virus. A few states began to reopen schools for older children at the end of 2020. However, Manish Singh, secretary of Manjari, the grass-roots NGO that operates in Budhpura, Rajasthan, reports that schools in the area are still closed. The long-term impact—affecting not only the children, but their future families—means reduced earning potential in the years to come.

Varun Sharma is Programmes Director of Aravali, the agency that acts as an interface between the government and grass-roots organisations like Manjari. “With learning levels not good,” he says, “our experts report that it will take another four or five years if you want to fulfill the deficit caused by the long lockdown.”

And that’s if the children return to school. A major challenge has been to keep them interested in learning. In India overall, it was estimated before the crisis that around six million children were not attending school. Now, across the whole country, 247 million children have lost time in the classroom and it is feared that many will never return.

This is partly because some children have returned to work, undoing some of the progress made in eradicating child labour. Absolute poverty is one of the driving factors in the existence of child labour, and no one can blame parents for feeling that, with no school and nothing to do, their children would be better occupied earning money.

Group of 3 children of different ages, sitting on stone slabs, with worksheets spread around. in Budhpura, Rajasthan, India. They're not in school because of Covid restrictions.

 

Worksheets have been developed with the help of subject experts, on core subjects like Maths and Hindi, and delivered to children. Image courtesy of Manjari

Manjari brings school to the children

Again Manjari have been busy, visiting families, explaining that work is not worth the cost to child development—the danger being that work compromises the child’s future as they are not then interested in going back to school.

To an extent, Manjari has become “school”. Although central government set up remote learning initiatives last year, to try to compensate for school closures, the huge urban/rural divide in the availability of the Internet is a major handicap. Pre-Covid, it was estimated that in rural areas only around 4% of households have access. “For the families in Budhpura, having an android-based mobile handset with internet connectivity is still a distant dream,” points out Manish Singh, Secretary of Manjari.

So, when permitted by Covid restrictions, volunteers have brought school to the children. Education Volunteers were briefed and given the responsibility of visiting a hundred households. “We create small groups of children,” says Manish, “and they share worksheets based on minimum academic levels, which come back to us for feedback.” The volunteers have reached around 1000 children in Budhpura and the surrounding villages.

An adolescent girl wearing a surgical mask because of Covid restrictions, leads a warm up session in the open air, before classes begin, in Budhpura, Rajasthan, India

 

A girl leads a warm-up session before learning commences. Alongside Education Volunteers are also Community Based Peer Educators—older boys and girls who go to school. These children have helped their siblings and younger neighbourhood children to continue their studies. “We call them peers,” says Manish, “because they are very much part of the children’s immediate environment and have a capacity to influence other children.” Image courtesy of Manjari

The importance of play

But all work and no play…is never good. “There is also a kind of psychological damage to the growth of children, because their whole environment is restricted now,” says Manish. “So we have distributed sports material to twenty children’s groups. They play in a safe environment with their friends and discuss their tensions.”

The teams have also visited cobble yards, organising games and story-telling nearby so that the children aged two or three years old, who cannot be left at home when their parents go to work, are able to play for an hour or two.

A girls' cricket team posing for the camera, in Budhpura, Rajasthan, India.

 

A girls’ cricket team. Image courtesy of Manjari

Mobile libraries take books to the children

One of the most successful initiatives in sustaining children’s interest has been the library. Inevitably, because of the pandemic, the central library—which is in Manjari’s office in Budhpura—closed last year. The mobile library was born, transporting up to sixty books at a time to different villages.

Manjari are providing funding and, over the year, the value of this initiative has become obvious. Over 3000 books have been borrowed from the library and there is increasing demand for new ones.

One of the most heartening aspects of working to improve conditions is the relatively small investment needed to make an impact. “Reaching to far-flung mining areas is difficult,” explains Varun, “so a small investment is suggested, to get an electric rickshaw—very low cost—which can reach these areas without involving fuel charges. This will help us to reach out to these children with books and developing their learning habits.”

Lack of science facilities

However, dealing with the problems created by Covid has underlined another lack, not related to the pandemic. “The children have no facilities to study science and maths,” says Manish. “There are no teachers for these subjects, so we are not creating interest in the children. And the ages of nine, ten and eleven are when a child gets their attitude to study.”

A class of young children sitting on the ground in open air class, wearing masks because of Covid virus, Rajasthan, India,

 

Classes have been held where possible. Picture credit: Manjari

The consequence is that children have no option except to study humanities—something which skews the future skills base of the country. “We’re in touch with local consultants,” says Manish. “When Covid is over we want to establish a small room at the centre where children come to see experiments.”

To facilitate this, we at No Child Left Behind will be looking into opportunities to provide books, science kits and other resources to spark an interest in children in these subjects in the early years.

But that is for the future. For now, all efforts are concentrated on keeping children and their families engaged, against the time when Covid restrictions will be a past difficulty, overcome.

Read more about Manjari, the grass-roots organisation in Budhpura, in Celebrating Budhpura! and The NGO helping to eradicate child labour

Continue Reading

Giving girls a future that isn’t “set in stone”

General

Long line of Indian girls in facemasks, sitting, looking towards camera on their left.

No Child Left Behind: helping to expand the life opportunities of adolescent girls.

Long line of Indian girls in facemasks, sitting, looking towards camera on their left.

A major focus of the work being performed by Manjari* within the community of Budhpura is in improving the health and prospects of adolescent girls.

Twenty-seven sessions have been delivered to adolescent groups in the last few months, covering topics such as literacy and entrepreneurship. One of the biggest benefits of this programme is in expanding the horizons of young women, helping them to see that their future is not “set in stone”.

Around 250 girls are involved in the programme; less than a third them are still in school, and some do occasional work in the stone yards. Some are, indeed, married. The legal age of marriage in India is 18.

Girls gather for one of their regular meetings.

Just as we explained in previous articles that child labour is a result of a complex situation, so is under-age marriage. It’s a concern that India as a whole has been trying to address for decades. The situation is improving and numbers are falling. In Rajasthan, however, the percentage of under-age marriages is much higher than the national average; Manish Singh, Secretary of Manjari reports that, in the Budhpura area, around 32% of marriages are under age.

The negative consequences of child marriage are many. Girls who marry very young have fewer educational opportunities, which affects their economic status and has a consequent impact on the economy of the country. Teenage pregnancy increases population growth because of the extra years of fertility. Young brides are more likely to be the victim of domestic violence and, according to the International Women’s Health Coalition, girls under the age of 15 are nearly five times more likely to die during childbirth, compared with women in their 20s; they are also at more risk of injuries resulting from pregnancy and childbirth.

The health of the children they bear can also suffer; often babies are underweight, and there’s a risk of their growing up stunted. All of this contributes to a cycle poverty, so there is enormous benefit to eradicating under-age marriage.

However tempting it is to condemn a situation, no problem has a single cause, and no problem has a single solution.

The work of Manjari and other agencies involved has to take into account multiple intertwining strands. “It’s how society perceives women,” explains Manish. “Are they considered a burden and responsibility, or are they people full of human potential?”

A meeting for adolescent girls in progress. Manish Singh in the blue check shirt.

Poverty also plays a big role. “In India marriages are big business, so when an older girl is being married, a young girl is also married with her just to save money.”

One of the ways to combat early marriage is education. Women with twelve or more years at school are far more likely to get married in their twenties than those with no schooling.

It is, however, no coincidence that girls tend to drop out of school when they reach puberty. Menstruation is a major issue. and menstrual hygiene is another of the subjects covered in the sessions attended by the girls.

Some of the problems surrounding periods are cultural; when she’s menstruating, a girl can find herself subject to restrictions on behaviour and movement passed on by parents and siblings. Unsafe menstrual practices, such as reusing old cloths, are not uncommon in rural areas; they increase the danger of contracting reproductive tract infections, which can severely impact fertility later on.

The pandemic has in no way helped. There’s been a huge shortage of sanitary pads, with seven out of ten girls finding difficulty in obtaining them during lockdown, according to a study by the NGO Population Foundation of India last August. Interestingly, Poonam Muttreja, its executive director, was reported in the Hindustan Times as saying: “It takes tremendous convincing on the part of frontline workers to encourage and educate school-going girls to use sanitary napkins.”

Perhaps this has something to do with the financial aspect. Girls have been reluctant in the past to buy sanitary towels because of their high cost, but they’ve also been embarrassed to them in male-run shops.

One of the life-skills training sessions in progress.

This makes the sessions incredibly important in educating young women in menstrual health, but without access to sanitary towels, the education is in vain. Varun Sharma, Programmes Director of Aravali, one of the agencies involved in supporting the work of Manjari, said, “There is a very big issue of women not being able to access sanitary napkins. In the absence of that, their entire life suffers.”

A lack of sanitary towels leads to girls dropping out of school—one of the very things which can help their life chances. As part of the solution, Manish has got together four entrepreneurs, to procure good-quality low-price sanitary napkins. They have now started selling these to women.

It’s one small building block in giving adolescent girls life options which in the past weren’t even dreamed of. The self-help groups that are empowering women financially is another. There are other building blocks too. All are combining to create a structure that gives women a more recognized value in their community.

*For more information on Manjari, see The NGO helping to eradicate child labour.

Continue Reading