The NGO playing a central role in eradicating Child Labour in Budhpura

Stories

Hello, My name is Steven Walley, I’m the Managing Director of London Stone, a UK based natural stone importer and supplier.

No Child Left Behind is a 6 part blog series, written to educate and inform the industry about the root causes of child labour in the Indian Sandstone industry.  The blog also aims to raise awareness of the amazing community led initiatives that are slowly succeeding in eradicating child labour in Budhpura and the surrounding villages and hamlets, where the majority of Sandstone Setts, destined for UK and European markets, are produced.

Last month you heard from Bram Callewier, Director of Belgium based stone importer, Stoneasy.  Bram’s informative blog talked about the historical context of how western companies got involved in the Indian Sandstone industry and how little our understanding was of ethical issues in those “early days”.  You’re now reading part 2 of the 6 part series.  I’m going to be talking about Manjari.  Manjari are the Budhpura based NGO playing a pivotal role in establishing child labour free zones in Budhpura and the surrounding villages & hamlets.  But first, before we go any further we need to understand the complexity of the root causes of child labour.

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Local library motivates children in Budhpura to enrol into formal schools

Field updates

There are many drivers that force children into work and it is not just about earning money for the family.  A big issue in Budhpura is the quality of the education, or lack of it. Classrooms are overcrowded, teachers are poorly trained and teaching and learning materials are absent. This not exactly the best incentive for parents to send their children to school.  The kids are better of working, this is the mentality of some parents.

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Building capacity of local Education Volunteers and Community Facilitators

Field updates

From 25 to 30 January 2016, 9 Education Volunteers, who are supporting the school teachers in Budhpura, and 2 Community Facilitators, who motivate parents in Budhpura to send their children to school, attended a training on interactive and child-friendly teaching and learning methods. They observed the teaching and learning activities at a Residential Learning Camp for out of school children and participated in training sessions on activity based learning, child friendly behavior of teachers and using local materials in the learning process. The training was facilitated by Seva Mandir, a NGO, based in Udaipur, with long-term experience and knowledge in education. This capacity building event will help in creating a more child friendly education environment in the project area where Manjari is working towards ‘child labour free zones’.

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Creating Child Labour Free Zones: A tough but rewarding journey.

Stories

Hello, my name is Bram Callewier, Director at Stoneasy.com, a natural stone importer.  Welcome to the first part of a 6 part blog series where we talk about child labour in the stone industry.  Everyone involved in natural stone will have heard about how children are involved in its production.  The truth is that yes, they are, and especially in certain activities such as cobble making.  But what’s really happening in these remote parts of the world, far away from our professionally designed gardens, what’s the real story?  This blog aims to educate people on the root causes of child labour and to share some of the truly inspiring community led projects, working tirelessly to tackle this and other related social issues.  What you read won’t always be pretty, but we promise it will be the truth and we guarantee it will be written impartially.

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Welcome to our blog !

General

Welcome to our blog. Our vision: no child is left behind; meaning that no child should be working and every child has the right to a good education and the right to enjoy childhood. The Indian Sandstone cobble industry is tarnished with stories of poor working conditions, bad labour practices and endemic child labour. While these issues do exist, they are not the whole story. Local people, NGO’s and a number of companies, are working tirelessly to improve the lives of people who work in and around the natural stone industry. Numerous positive, community lead initiatives are taking place. We write this blog to share the good news stories coming out of this program: creating ’Child Labour Free Zones’ in Budhpura.

To learn more about the Child Labour Free Zone approach see: http://www.stopchildlabour.eu/child-labour-free-zones/.

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