This is related to that previous discussion individuals were having in the Culture Forum (i think it was Irem’s thread regarding the two young larkain she saw, who were working at her office). Anyways, i raised the point that there was a Swedish NGO somewhere in southern/central Africa that was giving cash to families who sent their children to school. The following article focuses on the same principle, based upon children working as weavers in the Thar desert.
The article does mention some “teething” problems that the idea is running into. Every plan, no matter how carefully you may think it out from the outset, will always run into unexpected obstacles. This is just one of them. Overall, though, i think the NGOs, but especially the children and their parents, deserve some credit.
If you’re interested, then follow the link to read the article in its entirety. It’s long so i’m not going to paste everything, just the parts that i think are relevant.
Woven hands, Zofeen T. Ebrahim, DAWN, 1 April 2004
The children in the carpet weaving industry in the Thar desert are being provided with some respite because of the efforts of NGOs that are extending credit facilities to their families on the condition that the children will also attend school along with sitting at the looms, reports Zofeen T. Ebrahim.
…] Samki and Pratap are among the 40,000 children working in the carpet weaving industry in Sindh’s Thar desert. They are part of the 990 boys and 361 girls who have been enrolled in schools, and partly relieved (and perhaps eventually phased out) from carpet-making under the Protection of Rights of the Working Children in Carpet Industry, a project of Thardeep Rural Development Project (TRDP) funded by Save the Children, UK (SC-UK), Sweden and Comic Relief.
“The project aims to address the issue of child labour in the carpet industry through social mobilization and provision of credit on favourable terms to weaver families. Credit ranging from Rs12,000 to Rs25,000 is given to the highly indebted families. In return their children who sit at the loom have to go to school in the morning. Besides this, there is pressure on the families to better their working environment,” says Jiwan Das, programme manager, SC-UK.
In this way these children who were previously working more than eight hours a day, are able to study and still help the family in carpet-making. “We do not want them working for long hours or at the expense of missing out on school. At the same time we want them to pick up the craft and learn so that it does not die an unsung death,” adds Das.
It has been observed by field operators that children who were bound to work on the loom during the day have now been found performing a supportive role for the parents, instead of it being the other way round. The children worked on the loom of their own will and chose their own timings. Once they had been given a reprieve by getting enrolled during the day, they seemed happier and yet somehow more keen on giving time to the loom.
Initially getting parents to agree to enrolling their daughters in schools was an uphill task, especially if the teacher was not of the same caste or from the same village. Once that was resolved and the girls were released from their job, they began attending school on a regular basis.
“We were making two carpets in three months. At present the productivity has slowed, but the profit margin has increased, as no middleman (contractor) is involved,” says Assan happily. Earlier, for their work, most poor Tharis working on looms of the middleman would get paid in kind. Now they get cash, and that too has brought about a change in their attitude and thinking.
“Now that I have some money, I can spend it as I like. I am not bound to buy my groceries or the raw material for carpet weaving from the shops owned by the middleman. I can go to the nearby town and perhaps get a better price and better quality,” says Assan’s father. “It’s just that they currently have choices and that has given them an added confidence,” says Das.
Lajpat, a contractor, started business in the carpet industry and had 250 looms that he rented out. He holds no grudge against the weavers who have bought off the looms from him through the credit facilities by TRDP. “We’re happy for them. They are now getting a better deal. So what if we are equal and the contractor-weaver relationship is not there any more. I do feel the change, but I don’t mind it at all.”
He got Rs8,000,000 and “with that money I am able to send my son to England for further education. I would have been unable to do so if I did not have so much ready cash.” Another observation that he makes is the sense of ownership that has developed among the weavers and “they take better care of their looms, take care the yarn does not get dirty, and I have noticed that they have improved their working conditions.”
In fact, he predicts, now “they will work harder and make more carpets even if the children go to school. They have the incentive that the more they make the more profit they will earn.”
Apart from provision of loans, the project also sees to it that the standard of education improves, and there is an incentive for parents to send the children to school. “The local government was involved and meetings were organized with teacher training centres in Karachi for training master teachers of the local schools,” remarks Das.
The project, however, has seen its own set of teething problems. While it was easy to convince parents to send very young ones to school, it took some cajoling to persuade them to send children who were between 10-14 years of age (prime age for carpet weavers). There were cases when the families took them off from their own looms, but sent them to weave at other looms.
There were some families who enrolled their children in schools to avail of the credit facility, but in turn, employed other under-age children from the community on a wage-basis - a direct negation of the vision of the project.
Phulo sent his younger brother to school instead of the niece for who he got the loan. “If I send her to school, who will help me? We are a family of eight. I’m supporting my brother’s family who died recently.” Phulo’s own wife died during child-birth as they were unable to reach hospital on time.
“Now that I have my own loom, a lot of pressure has been lifted off me. I’ve become energized. Even my fingers work quicker now that my mind is relaxed. There is an added incentive for me - the more I work, the more money I will make - and the faster I’ll be able to pay off the loan. Life has never been better.” Once the loan is paid off, he promises to send his niece to school.