It takes a village to raise a child - Margaret Mead.
Many people have heard this saying from the anthropologist Margaret Mead – and the site team (my colleagues and me from RB Pharma and the Save the Children team) experienced it in action in all aspects of the project to improve the lives of children in the brick kiln factories.
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I wrote previously about RB Pharmaceutical’s new initiative and our visit to the site.
Today, we visited two Bridge Course Centers (BCC) at Brick Kilns in Barasat II Block.
BCCs are designed by Save the Children to help bridge the education gap of the children of brick kiln workers between the ages of 6-15 year, to build up their learning level in order to ultimately mainstream them in the government schools.
The Bridge Course Centers are small brick structures around 10ft by 12ft with matted floors for the children to sit and there is natural light streaming through the slatted windows.
So imagine our surprise to find 46 children and two teachers engaged in active learning in such a small place!
We removed our shoes and slipped in, sitting amongst the children. The youngest children were playing a hand game with their teacher, learning how to count in a fun fashion. The older children were writing the English alphabet on their chalk boards.
The beautiful little girl I was sitting next to would repeat each letter as I pointed to it in a shy whisper. I was overcome with bittersweet emotion as our alphabet bridged the diverse worlds of this West Bengal child – the first generation of a brick kiln worker to receive any education and an educated American.
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After a short visit the children opened up their hearts to us and more than a dozen of them stood one at a time and offered us a song, a poem or a prayer.
We poured our hearts out to them as we clapped, cheered and cried with each generous offering. All the more moving as several women from the brick kilns were peeking through the slates as the children shared.
Imagine the new dreams they might begin to have for their children.
After our visit with the children, we were honoured to meet with many of their parents. They shared how difficult the life of a brick kiln worker is, labouring under the hot sun in back-breaking conditions, then entire families existing in an 8 x 8 ft shelter.
What touched us most was, like parents all over the world, they simply wanted a better life for their children.
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Our site visit today culminated with a meeting with several owners of local brick kiln factories. I must admit we were all a bit sceptical about how this meeting might go. Most of us believe that the brick kiln owners would be quite resistant to the charges we hope to bring. We started slowly asking questions about the brick kiln owners themselves, whether the brick kilns had been passed down through the families, had they built new kilns etc.
We gradually moved to questions regarding child labour, migrant families and education. The meeting was going quite pleasantly and we were finding ourselves growing more and more fond of the brick kiln owners as we began to realize that they wanted the same things we did for the children. They want their brick kilns free of child labour and were proud that children were being educated at the Bridge Course Centers on site at their brick kilns, too.
We learned that they had gone so far as to offer the land and the bricks to build the small schools.
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The big moment came when the question was asked about other brick kiln owners and government laws and initiatives for the project to eradicate all child labour in the brick kilns.
One owner, who had previously sat silent throughout the meeting, came alive and passionately shared that the movement has gained such momentum that change is about to happen on an unimaginable scale than could have even been thought possible two short years ago!
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Indeed it takes a village and RBP is now part of that village in West Bengal!
