Child Labour Elimination Project  

In partnership with Pokhara Chamber of Commerce and Industry

 

This project aims to improve conditions for working children and ensure they can access their basic rights to education and healthcare.  We also offer support for their futures, through vocational training, employment opportunities and reunification with their families.

These are our main areas of support:

Basic services

5 daytime contact centres have been established in the areas of Pokhara where most children work.  The services provided include:

• Non-formal education
• Basic healthcare
• Skills training
• Counselling
• Legal support
• Family reunification

Social workers at the centres monitor children's progress and advocate with children's employers to allow children to attend regularly.  They also monitor children who have left the centre to be reunified with their family or to enter formal employment, to ensure the children do not fall back into child labour again.

Each centre has a children's club which contributes to the overall management committee for the centre.  The management committees have been established with the support of community police, social activists, employers, parents and teachers, and include 2 child representatives on each.

Non-formal education

Each contact centre has 2 hour non-formal education sessions, which are accessible even for children who are forced to continue working.  Children can develop basic skills such as literacy, which can act as a bridge to joining formal school.

Formal education

One of the most important factors in preventing child labour, is ensuring children attend and stay in school.  However, most working children cannot afford the costs involved.  We are able to support some of these children to attend school, through help with uniforms, educational materials, school fees and social support.   

Vocational and apprenticeship training

Not all children want or are able to attend formal school, so when the children get older, we offer them vocational or apprenticeship training opportunities.  Once qualified, we support them in their search for employment, or in establishing their own business.  This enables young people to support themselves in work with dignity.

 

Sarita's story

Sarita was 5 years old when her father died, and her mother re-married.  Her new stepfather started to beat her regularly after drinking alcohol, but her mother did nothing to help her daughter, so Sarita asked her older sister to take her away.  She was brought to Pokhara to work as a domestic worker 15 months ago.

Unusually, Sarita's employer treated her very well, and voluntarily supported her to come to the drop-in centre.  Sarita attended regularly, and developed from being illiterate to having basic reading and writing skills in the non-formal education classes.  She was also able to make friends with other children in the same situation.

Having learnt her story, PCCI searched for and made contact with Sarita's mother.  She had been looking for her daughter, and explained that she wanted Sarita to return home, having left her abusive husband and started work in a department store with a small but regular salary.  Sarita was delighted!

In the presence of local committee members, Sarita's employer, and the staff of PCCI, Sarita's mother signed an agreement to take Sarita home on the condition that she took care of her and enrolled her in school.  They are now living in a different part of Nepal, but PCCI have made contact and they are both happy with their new life.

 

Consortium for working children

This project provides services in partnership with a local consortium of four organisations working for street and working children.  This enables us to provide choices to suit each individual child, from counselling to family reintegration, from non-formal education to vocational training, from medical treatment to a business loan.  Please see our Protection and Social Support page for more details about the consortium's work.