Celebrating Budhpura!

On Sunday the 24th March, something momentous and joyous happened in the village of Budhpura, Rajasthan, India. To understand why the 24th March was such a momentous day though we need to understand the history of this semi-rural village, tucked away in the back waters of Rajasthan.

85% of the worlds Sandstone is quarried in Rajasthan and the Bundi highway cuts through this stone quarrying region like a knife. There is a stretch of this highway where for 20km all you can see in every direction are quarries and mining activity!

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Number Of Teachers Key To Tackling Creating Child Labour Free Zones

Number Of Teachers Key To Tackling Creating Child Labour Free Zones – London Stone Managing Director Steve Walley tells us about this important issue

Child labour is a complex issue but it is only when you start working on trying to address the issue that you begin to understand just how complex it is. In the UK and Europe, we take for granted how good our education system is. We expect that when our children attend school there will be teachers present to teach them. The situation is very different in Budhpura, India. Before we go any further, a re-cap about the project we are working on to create child labour free zones in Budhpura.

Budhpura is a rural village in the state of Rajasthan, India, and one of the main sourcing regions for Indian Sandstone.  More specifically, Budhpura is widely known as being the key sourcing region for Sandstone cobbles (setts) and due to the nature of cobble production this makes the whole region particularly vulnerable to child labour.

An exciting project has been underway in Budhpura since 2015.  A group of NGO’s and private businesses (The Stop Child Labour Campaign, ARAVALI, Manjari, ICN, Belgium Stone importer, Stoneasy and UK based landscape materials importer, London Stone) came together with a simple mission; to eradicate Child labour in Budhpura.

The project has made lots of progress.  In the last 3 years, hundreds of children have been taken out of child labour and enrolled into formal education.  There’s a long road ahead though, and the whole project team are under no illusions that after three years of hard work we are still only scratching the surface as to the extent of this problem.

One of the biggest issues the project and the community have faced is a severe lack of quality teachers.  Manjari are the local NGO working on the ground in Budhpura and one of their key roles is to talk to the community and cajole and convince parents to the benefits of getting their children to attend school.  It doesn’t matter how good a job Manjari do though, if when the children get to school there are no teachers present to teach them. The parents of the children will lose their incentive. It is a ‘chicken and egg’ scenario and given this climate it is easy to see why children then disappear between the cracks and slip into child labour.

The lack of quality teachers has been a huge barrier to progress for this project, so we are ecstatic to be able to share some amazing news with you.  After years of lobbying at different levels of local Indian Government we have finally secured a large influx of teachers to come and work at some of the local Budhpura schools. We’ve produced a simple table a comparison of teacher numbers from Spring to Autumn 2018.  The numbers have almost doubled, clearly demonstrating the fantastic progress we have made:

Name of School No of Teachers as of 10.04.2018 No of Teachers as of 10.10.2018 % Increase
1 Budhpura Choraha 04 08 100%
2 Bhilon ka Jhopda 01 02 100%
3 Dhorela 01 02 100%
4 Parana Gurjar 01 02 100%
5 Parana Karado 01 02 100%
6 Parana Ramdev 01 02 100%
7 Budhpura Gaon 04 07 75%
Overall Total 13 25 92%

Doubling the number of teachers in local schools is a massive achievement for the project and represents a huge step forward for the reliability and quality of education available in Budhpura.  It must have been extremely demoralising for Manjari to see all their efforts of lobbying the community go to waste because the schools could not provide the number of teachers required. This development can only strengthen Manajaris hand when talking to the parents of local children. This whole project is about breaking down barriers to progress and by doubling the number of teachers in Budhpura we have removed a huge barrier to children attending school.  Stay posted for further progress updates in due course.

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Looking Towards The Future

No Child Left Behind: A Retrospective Series on the Progress Made and What’s To Come

In this four-part series, we’ll take a look back at the No Child Left Behind program, the progress that’s been made, and also explore what’s on the horizon.

Part 4: Looking Towards the Future

Now that the No Child Left Behind programme has some established successes, it’s time to begin looking towards the future. In this case, that means expanding much of the work towards also helping the broader community, and in particular addressing the standards in the yards and mines.

The mines are a long way from civilisation. Achieving any change here will be an enormous challenge.

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The Situation Now

No Child Left Behind: A Retrospective Series on the Progress Made and what’s To Come

In this four-part series, we’ll take a look back at the No Child Left Behind program, the progress that’s been made, and also explore what’s on the horizon.

Part 3: The Work Pays Off

Since the beginning of No Child Left Behind, tremendous progress has been made in getting children out of work and back into schools. In fact, according to the report “Stop Child Labour – Out of Work Programme – End Term Evaluation” from the Stop Child Labour Coalition, 361 children were prevented from child labour and an additional 593 were withdrawn from child labour, out of a total 1,019 children who were initially identified as “out of school.” In addition, seven schools (including six primary and one secondary) are now fully functional compared with only one before. There are also eight pre-school centers (Anganwadis), which were non-existent before. Additional teachers are also expected to be appointed, as a result of the ongoing lobbying of the state government.

The project has delivered real and tangible results, getting children back into education

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On The Ground

No Child Left Behind: A Retrospective Series on the Progress Made and what’s To Come

In this four-part series, we’ll take a look back at the No Child Left Behind program, the progress that’s been made, and also explore what’s on the horizon.

Part 2: The Project Begins to Take Shape

In a project such as No Child Left Behind, ensuring its long-term success is a complicated proposition. While organisations outside the region may sometimes be tempted to take control of the various aspects of the project from abroad, the reality is that this type of remote management has serious limitations. In order for a project like this to be successful, it must be run by a competent team of professionals on the ground who have a deep knowledge of the community they’re serving as well as an understanding of the type of bureaucracy and general challenges they will be facing.

For the No Child Left Behind program, it was the local team from Manjari based in Budhpura who made the difference. Their team, which included a number of individuals from Budhpura, was more prepared to tackle the challenges of child labor due to their insight into the area and the unique issues facing the community. But it wasn’t always easy – a lot of training was needed initially to make sure all of the staff members were up to speed on the work.

The Manjari team after a multi stakeholder meeting
The Manjari team after a multi stakeholder meeting

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