“A child is a child first” - Jatin, Save the Children India
“Impossible is a word to be found in a fool’s dictionary” – Sign in the Save the Children office
I have written here previously about the site team from RB Pharmaceuticals’ emotional and inspirational visit to the brick kiln factories in India.
This pioneering initiative with Save the Children aims to help improve the lives of children working in brick kiln factories in the rural areas of West Bengali, where thousands of children are trapped or trafficked or kidnapped from rural areas.
Since 2008 Save the Children has been working to eradicate child labour, provide childcare for working mothers and education centres for children. RB is honoured to partner with them, sharing our resources of time, talent and finances in this joint mission to ‘be the difference that makes a difference’..
We experienced another amazing day as we continue to weave the threads in our understanding around all the complexities of the project in order to improve the lives of children in the brick kiln factories.
We visited adolescent girls at the bridge course centre in the Haroa block. Educating the adolescent children of brick kiln factory workers becomes much more complex than the younger children as for many the learning gap is often too wide to bridge in order for them to be mainstreamed into state government schools. Their families depend on the extra income their work provides in order to simply survive.
The solution for many of these children points to developing centres where they can have a trade that will lead to a life outside the brick kilns.
Our girls were engaged in learning the Hindi and English alphabet as well as numerals. They were quite shy at first and warmed up to use after we greeted them in Hindi: “Namaste, my name is Joanne”.
We asked about their life in the brick kiln which they revealed was very hard. They rise early to work making bricks, go to school and then back to the kilns to help support their families.
Education is making it possible for them to dream of a brighter future. When asked, several of the girls said they would like to be teachers – returning the gift given to them.
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Our next visit was with the panchyat, the local leader of the Haroa black area with 7 kiln factories under his jurisdiction.
We asked many questions about his views of the rights of children labouring in the brick kilns. We were encouraged when he responded: “They are suffering and they are not meant to suffer”.
He shared with obvious pride that the 7 brick kilns in Haroa block are child labour free and each one has a bridge course centre. We learned through him that land had been selected in his area to build a government ICD centre which would provide educational health and child protection services to the brick kiln children in his area.
He was hopeful that construction would begin soon after the start of the Bengali New Year – April 15th (Construction utilizing brick from brick kilns that are child labor free).
We concluded our visit with a meeting at the NMCS project partner office with a lively sharing of ideas for future improvements to the brick kilns project between Save the Children, NCMS and RBPharma.
The passion and commitment of all members present was alive and palpable as we imagined together the possibilities that didn’t exist for these beautiful children just 2 short years ago!
“It’s giving a voice to the children” Manab Roy – Save the Children India
A voice indeed the world needs to hear to reach it’s fullness.
