2008 Awards
North America
United States—Aryn Calhoun: Music Video on Child Soldiers and Worst Forms Child Labor
An up and coming singer-songwriter musician with 10+ years of experience, hundreds of original songs, six albums, and an awesome voice, Aryn Calhoun, known professionally as Aryn Michelle, will be using her grant to produce a quality song with lyrical depth and musical emotion to help address and raise awareness about child labor issues. As a medium, music helps people rally around important social justice issues. A well-crafted song that is shared and posted on the Internet and used to reach out to the public is a new and innovative way to achieve awareness about child labor. Aryn is currently a student at Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. To catch some of Aryn’s sounds, click here.
Emily’s Impression: Emily would love this proposal. She had just started writing her own human rights’ songs after helping with the Hurricane Katrina relief efforts in New Orleans. Music and singing were a huge part of her life and she definitely felt what the power of music could accomplish.
United States—Julia Perez: Advocacy with Legislators on Improving Laws to Protect Children from Child Labor in the USA
As a former migrant farmworker, Julia is well aware of the exceptions in the US labor laws that do not afford equal protection for children working in agriculture. Some of her earliest memories start at the age of 5 when she was pulled out of school to start working in the fields like her brothers and sisters. Her childhood ended like so many other migrant children leaving school in April and returning in late October missing many months of school. However, Julia is an exception to the rule. Valuing education, she has achieved a master’s in electrical engineering, 2 patents filed and 15 technical publications to her credit. Julia will be using her grant to develop a booklet with personal writing about child labor in the US, information about the Children’s Act Responsible Employment (CARE) bill, and exemptions under the current Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) that leave US children working in agriculture at risk. The booklet will be sent to the 435 representatives and key media personalities.
Emily’s impressions: Emily would be so interested in this proposal. She had worked hard to try and have a placement in a migrant farm schoolhouse and had even envisioned traveling with the migrant farm children as their teacher.
Africa
Uganda—Luhwahwa Youth Development Foundation (LUYODEFO): Awareness-raising Training of Community Owned Resource Persons (CORPs) in 15 Villages
LUYODEFO is a local community based NGO located in Kajwange, Kisinga sub-county, Bukonzo East constituency in Kasese district of the far western Uganda region. Luhwahwa Youth Foundation is using their grant award to reduce the level of child labor by improving the knowledge base for public advocacy. Orientation meetings are planned with stakeholders to design ways of communication, procedures and recommendations for project innovations. LUYODEFO will conduct awareness raising training for the Community Owned Resource Persons (CORPs) from 15 villages of Kisinga sub-county, are some of the activities to be achieved. A total of 60 CORPs members will be trained.
Emily’s impressions: Emily would love this application. She worked tirelessly to empower disadvantaged youth through education, health and life skills. She also worked tirelessly to educate people about the importance of ending child labor.
Asia / Near East
India—LEVERAGE Trust: Addressing Child Labor in the Stone Quarries through Education
LEVERAGE Trust is an NGO formed in 1994 by a group of women social workers with NGO/voluntary organization experience and addressing women’s issues. LEVERAGE will be using their grant to eliminate child labor in the stone quarries in five villages of Pudukottai District through intensive awareness and education campaigns among the stone quarry workers families using school student volunteers. These volunteers will be trained and supported by LEVERAGE staff.
Emily’s impressions: Emily would love the idea of empowering the children to be the educators against child labor. She would also love that it is an active idea having a bicycle rally. She had lived and worked in Nepal, using a bike as transportation, and had always wanted to work in India to help stop child labor.
Nepal—Nepal Orphan’s Home (NOH): Education About Child Labor through Poster Development by Children (Orphans)
NOH is being awarded an Emily Sandall Memorial Grant to enable the children at its separate homes to create posters depicting how they would view a world without exploitive child labor. The activities will commence in June 2008. Tapping into the children’s artwork and creativity, NOH will display the posters in a common area to raise awareness about child labor issues in the broader community. NOH will also take photographs of the children participating in the poster project, which will be featured on the organization’s website and provided to IIECL for distribution.
Emily’s impressions: This project speaks to Emily’s spirit so much. She lived and worked in Nepal. She would love the idea of “empowering” the children to advocate for a better world for themselves and others through their education and their artwork. It’s perfect!
Pakistan—Rural Development Organization (RDO): Prevention Campaign on Child Labor in Agriculture
RDO will be receiving a second Emily Sandall Memorial Grant to further their work in the rural agricultural areas in the Faisalabad Region in Pakistan. With this grant, they will be organizing and conducting a full week of celebrations and activities centered around the World Day Against Child Labor during the week of June 11-17, 2009. To accomplish their objectives, they will form Thinkers Groups, conduct speech competitions, on-air balloons, develop and distribute pamphlets and sponsor debates as part of their activities to gain community support to end child labor and raise awareness among authorities and the general public to end child labor and pursue parliamentarians to formulate law for the protection of affected children and their families.
Emily’s impressions: Emily would love this project for World Child Labor Day. She would also like supporting an organization that she had worked with before, as she did this in her own life. We can imagine that she would love to enter a speech competition like RDO is proposing and would write an impassioned speech.
Africa
Kenya—Christian Women Partners (CWP): Assisting HIV/AIDS Orphans and Other Vulnerable Children in Fishing Communities
An Emily Sandall Memorial Grant is being provided to CWP, a civil society organization working with the fisher folk communities of Mageta Island and Usenge beaches. The grant will enable the CWP to train HIV/AIDS orphans and other vulnerable children on how to develop a Memory Book / Will Writing and Family Tree to document the lives of their families and helping them to deal with their grief and feelings of loss. Additionally, CWP will undertake activities to reduce beach fishing child labor and exploitation in the hard to reach area of Bondo District, Kenya along the beaches of Lake Victoria.
Emily’s impressions: Emily would feel very passionate about this project as the orphans are a vulnerable population and it is a project of prevention and hope. She worked tirelessly with the street children population which was also vulnerable and had always wanted to travel to Africa to work with the HIV/AIDS population.
2007 Awards
Asia / Near East
India—Society for Human Education and Development (SHED): Establishing a School for Former Child Laborers
SHED is being awarded an Emily Sandall Memorial Grant for the elimination of child labor in the Manachanallur and Anthanallur blocks in Trichy District in Tamilnadu, India. SHED will establish a special school for 25 child laborers, age 9 to 14 years, released from the various trades. These children will be provided awareness-raising, education, nutritious noon meal, educational materials (books and note books), medical care, and school uniform dresses. Awareness-raising with their parents or guardians will be conducted. After the end of the school year, the children will be streamlined into formal public schools in their respective areas according to the age and needs of the child. Health and hygiene education will be given to the target children weekly on various relevant topics. Thus, the special school and skill training for child laborers, awareness-raising among the parents of child labor and the value of education will enable the progressive elimination of child labor in the targeted block in the Trichy District.
Emily’s impressions: Emily would love this project. It matches very closely the school in Nepal for former and potential child-laborers for which she fund-raised and worked .She had always hoped to travel to India to work with at-risk children.
Latin America
El Salvador—Co-Partners of Campesinas and La Nueva Esperanza (New Hope): Mobilizing Business to Establish Apprenticeships for Older Youth to Prevent Migration for Employment
Based on the results of their 2007 Emily Sandall Memorial Grant, Co-Partners of Campesinas and La Nueva Esperanza will be provided a grant to conduct a meeting with 24 businesses to formalize apprenticeship arrangements for youth and conduct a vocational evaluation workshop for 24 youth in order to determine which apprenticeship placement would be most appropriate for each youth. In the vocational evaluation workshop, participants will take a vocational interest test, discuss their interests and test results with a counselor. They will also be placed in two or three brief vocational experience workshops in areas of the apprenticeships (metal work, auto repair, mechanical repair, baking, beauty salon, etc.) An educational meeting for participating employers on relevant sections of the Salvadoran Labor Code will be provided as well. The workshop will ensure that children are placed in the workplace most appropriate for their interests and abilities and will help ensure that employers know the appropriate labor codes for apprentices.
In 2007, an Emily Sandal Memorial Grant administered by IIECL funded a community mapping of workshops and productive businesses to assess their willingness to take on apprentices. Six youth over age 14 (Salvador’s minimum working age) who were no longer in school and were potential project beneficiaries were trained to conduct interviews of workshop and business owners. The youth conducted 46 interviews. In those, 28 employers gave positive responses indicating that they would be interested in participating in the apprenticeship program.
Emily’s impressions: Emily would love this project. She felt very passionately about educating children and giving them the skills/training to stay in their own communities as evidenced by her work in Mexico with street children and in the schools and shelters. She was developing a street children learning curriculum for use with her work.
North America
United States—Four Fairfax County, Virginia Middle School Teachers and Curriculum Specialists: Development of a Vocational Lifeskills Curriculum
To address the needs of older illiterate youth in rural communities in cocoa growing communities in Ghana and to try to ensure that they have access to education that is relevant to their environment and needs, four middle-school teachers in Fairfax County, Virginia are being awarded an Emily Sandall Memorial Grant to provide curriculum development assistance by re-working and improving the “Education Works in Cocoa Production Vocational Lifeskills Workbook” and converting it into a three-tier curriculum that will enable illiterate youth to attain a sixth grade level reading and math competency while learning valuable, functional vocational and other lifeskills. Their work will result in a holistic curriculum that integrates literacy, numeracy, and life skills with health and sanitation awareness, civic rights and responsibilities while providing comprehensive knowledge of job related skills in cocoa production. The curriculum will be designed to facilitate education that encompasses both the phonetic and whole language approaches to learning, thus resulting in a holistic and functional learning tool. Included with the curriculum will be teacher’s guides.
Emily’s impressions: This project matches Emily’s interests so well, as she was working on a curriculum for street children that incorporated lifeskills, literacy and health awareness and prevention.
Africa
Zimbabwe—New Hope Foundation: March Against Child Labor in Zimbabwe
To improve the knowledge base and awareness of child labor in Zimbabwe, the New Hope Foundation is planning to conduct a Global March Against Child Labor in Zimbabwe in December 2007. Emily’s grant was used to support the planning and conduct of a Global March Against Child Labor in Zimbabwe in 2007. The activities included: 1) the conduct of surveys to gather information on the extent of child labor in communities; and 2) the march from Harare (in NE Zimbabwe toward the border of Mozambique) to Plumtree (in SW Zimbabwe on the border with Botswana).
Emily’s Impressions: Emily would have loved to have been a part of this march, both in organizing and marching. She had always wanted to travel to this part of the world and had considered Peace Corps. However, she placed her application on hold when she started receiving mini-grants because she wanted to be able to do her own projects.
Latin America/Caribbean
El Salvador—Co-partners of Campesinas: Conduct Needs Assessment with Children and Youth Who Migrate for Employment
To support the reduction of youth becoming engaged in exploitive migration for employment, Co-partners of Campesinas used their Emily grant to pay for the cost of a needs assessment in preparation for the design of a project to reduce exploitive migration of under-age Salvadoran youth. The project included training a group of six older youth, who were at legal age to work in El Salvador, and trained them to conduct community mapping of workshops and businesses in Ilobsco, El Salvador that might be willing to take on apprentices. The assessment results guided the development of the project that was implemented by La Nueva Esperanza to provide alternative income generating activities locally through training and apprenticeships, thus reducing the need for exploitive migration for employment.
Emily’s Impression: Emily loved working with the children in Latin America. She was well aware of the needs of migrating children and youth, as evidenced by her work with street children in Mexico.
North America
United States—International Center on Child Labor Education (ICCLE): Production of Conference Materials for Conference in New York, April 2008
To increase knowledge and information on child labor, forced labor and human trafficking by involving teachers and young people in the campaign to eliminate child labor and get the message out to all levels of society, ICCLE used the Emily grant to support the cost of the production of conference materials, in particular the brochure. Emily’s grant was used to support the collaboration between ICCLE and Drew University to organize and conduct a conference on “Teaching about Child Labor and Human Trafficking” that was held April 25-26, 2008. Results and products produced during the conference are planned to become the basis of a curriculum module to be published and distributed by ICCLE.
Emily’s Impression: Emily would have loved to have attended and participated in this conference. She would have taken an active role in using the future curriculum.
United States—Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs (AFOP): Production of a Photo Booklet to Educate About Child Labor in Agriculture
AFOP used its Emily grant to raise awareness through the creation of a photo booklet to educate the public and decision-makers about the lives of child farmworkers. Emily’s grant helped to support the cost to provide disposable cameras to child farmworkers that enabled them to document their lives and tell their story. The camera project documents the lives of child farmworkers, from their work in the fields to their living conditions in migrant camps. This approach provided a unique glimpse from the child farmworkers’ perspective and worked toward documenting the existence of child labor in the fields and orchards across the United States.
Emily’s Impression: Emily loved working with migrant children and their families. This photo project is very similar to the project she undertook with street children in Mexico City, Mexico possible due to the IIECL Youth Mini-grant award she had received.
Asia/Near East
Pakistan—Rural Development Organization: Awareness-raising with Community Members in Rural Agricultural District in Pakistan
RDO worked to raise awareness of children, parents, teachers and community members concerning the hazards of child labor and the availability of educational alternatives. RDO provided anti-child labor awareness by mentoring youth groups, media officials, local actors, civil society groups, government officials, and elected members through community theatres, documentary films and awareness raising sessions in Toba Tek Singh, a district of Punjab Province, Pakistan.
Emily Impressions: Emily would have loved this project. She had worked against child labor in Nepal and had hoped to work in other countries in Asia in the future.
IIECL Youth Mini-Grant Awards
IIECL began the funding of small mini-grants to support youth education and assistance to eliminate child labor through small international and domestic not-for-profit organizations and individuals with similar objectives. The “baby step” has led to the current program that averages funding of eight to ten projects annually.