USA: IIECL Announces Latest Group of Emily Grant Winners – IIECL

The International Initiative to End Child Labor (IIECL) and the Emily Sandall Foundation are pleased to announce this year’s recipients for Emily grants. A total of 20 awards were announced. The grantees selected include organizations and individuals from Afghanistan, Albania, Cambodia, China, India, Kenya, Pakistan, Peru, Uganda, United Kingdom and Zimbabwe. The grant activities funded include projects that will rescue children from hazardous labor, provide education services, vocational training, and awareness-raising. Additionally, projects will conduct valuable research to highlight areas of child labor not previously studied and production of various documentaries to visually record child labor and the impact that it has had on the lives of children. The central focus of all projects is to end child labor. Following is an alphabetical list of the Emily grants to be awarded:

Afghanistan

• AIRANA (Sweden): Project to raise awareness and promote education among the Lakol street children in Kabul.

Albania

• Projekte Vullnetare Nderkombetare: Project to increase the level of information and raise awareness in Albania society about child labor through the development of a 45-minute documentary on child labor in Albania.

Cambodia

• South East Asia Investigations into Social and Humanitarian Activities (SISHA): Documentary on four-year old (now 12) sold into slave labor in a slaughterhouse and her subsequent rehabilitation.
• Salariin Kampuchea: To sponsor English classes for 225 disadvantaged children working in agriculture through “Volunteer Teaching Clubs” in the villages of Boeung, Krosaing, Veal, Tacheik and Buskrolan.

China

• Juvenile Education and Research Center (Liu Jia): Assistance to single mothers to learn job skills to support education for their children currently working as garbage scavengers in the Uygur slum in Urumqi, Xinjiang, China.

India

• Association for Rural Development (ARD): Research to determine economic contributions of working children laboring in the informal sector in the Madurai District.
• Backward Community Literacy Development (BCLD) Society: Assist 60 rural poor former child laborers or those at risk of child labor, 28 girls and 32 boys six to fourteen, to attend school in  Chinthakommadinne Mandal of YSR District, Andhra Pradesh State, India.
• Madura Trust: Survey to identify the number of children working in the fireworks industry in the Siv Akasi area.
• People’s Organization for Liberation and Education (POLE): Rescue 30 children from hazardous labor in the brick kiln sector and enroll them into education in the Salem District.
• Social Action for Association and Development (SAAD): Research on social exclusion (particularly rights to education and other related rights for better and dignified labor-free living) of socially excluded groups, i.e., Aradhey (beggers), Kolatin and Tamasha dancers, and landless and Devdasi women and girls in the rural and urgan areas of Marathwada, in the Parbhani District.
• Society for Community Development Project (SCDP): Continue support for art (puppetry) and other actions (bicycle rally) to raise awareness in the five targeted villages of Chinnagoundapuram, Ramalingapuram, Udayapatty, Sastri Nagar and Athikaripatty village of Ayothiyapatinam block of Salem District to end child labor.

Kenya

• Physical and Psychosocial Development Organization (PHYDO): Support for the “Learn without Fear” project to stop bullying and abuse in four rural Kenyan schools.

Pakistan

• Pakistan Pediatric Association (Child Rights and Abuse Committee, Dr. Tufail Muhammad): Research on the practice of keeping boys for sexual services in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province of Pakistan.

Peru

• Aristotle Escate (Professor of Physical Education and Lawyer in Education / Trainer of Professional Soccer): Establishing a soccer camp for disadvantaged children to promote school completion and prevent child labor in Paucará, Peru.

Uganda

• Care and Empowerment of the Vulnerable in Africa (CAEVA): Needs assessment and awareness raising among child sugarcane workers in the Jinja District.
• James Kityo:  Research and documentation, by film and booklet, showing evidence of child labor in northern Uganda’s Pader, Palisa and Kabarole Districts.
• Hope for Orphans and Rural Development (HORD): Baseline study of child labor in the Kamuli District.
• Pro-Biodiversity Conservationists in Uganda (PROBICOU): Researching pesticide poisoning and ill effects on child laborers in agricultural work in 20 districts in Uganda, including but not limited to Rakai,  Wakiso, Bushenyi, Kabarole, Mukono, Kanungu, Jinja, Mukono, Masindi, Rwengo, Masaka, Mubende, Mbale, Rukungiri, Kiboga, Gulu, Kitgum, Lira, Pallisa and Arua.

UK (Ghana)

• Steven Keen, Film-maker: Support for the production of the film, “Fisher of Kids” regarding true story of James Kofi Annan, former child slave who escaped from the Ghanaian fishing industry at age 13 who later became a manager at the Barclay’s Bank of Ghana and a leading anti-child slavery activist.

Zimbabwe

• Defensa de Nińas y Nińos Internacional: Research on the state of child labor in Zimbabwe and its effective on children’s health and the economy in three districts.

“Emily” grants are so named in honor of Emily Sandall, a young woman who, during her short life, committed herself to humanitarian efforts before a tragic accident in 2006 took her life. The Emily grants are a way to keep Emily’s passions alive, continue to help disadvantaged youth, raise awareness of child labor and street children issues, work to end child labor, and help give children across the world a chance at a better life. Emily was the first recipient of an IIECL youth mini-grant. The grant program name was changed to Emily grants to honor her and keep her memory alive. The Emily Sandall Foundation and IIECL co-fund Emily grants. With this award, some 65 grants have been awarded worldwide since the program’s inception in 2004.

For more information, visit IIECL’s website at www.endchildlabor.org or send an email to ESMF-Grant@endchildlabor.org.