International NGO Save the Children, and its partners Breakthrough, Pratham and the IKEA Foundation on Thursday unveiled a Rs50 crore programme to protect 790,000 children living in cotton communities in the states of Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan.
This long-term programme aims to keep children out of cotton fields, and in classrooms where they can learn, play, grow and develop and be children.
An independent research study in 2008 revealed that prosperous Punjab has a large number of children working in the agriculture sector with an estimated 25 per cent of them in cotton picking.
Rajasthan and Haryana are not far behind, with 23 per cent and 16 per cent of cotton picking labour being children.
The project was launched here on Thursday by Parminder Singh Dhindsa, Finance Minister, Punjab and Rao Narender Singh, Health Minister, Haryana in the presence of Thomas Chandy, Save the Children’s CEO in India.
Save the Children, Pratham and Breakthrough will work with panchayat leaders, farmers, teachers, families and Indian State officials in Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan, to provide children with access to quality education, improve teacher training, develop local child protection committees and school management committees and tackle issues like gender based discrimination.
Dhindsa lauded the efforts of Save the Children and their partner NGOs for their contribution and said that children are prone to exploitation as they cannot raise their voice.
Everyone is duty bound to contribute for the cause, but challenge is to create awareness in society and among the parents of child labour victims,
he added.
Haryana Health Minister, Rao Narender Singh said that children are the gift of God and we must do a lot to secure
their rights.
He said we must support such NGOs and Haryana is taking steps to educate the children and alleviate poverty.
In the states of Punjab and Haryana, Save the Children will work directly at community level to form community groups and increase the reporting of child labour, linking them with the Government’s Child Protection Services. Pratham will work at primary and upper middle school level to improve the learning levels across grades 3.
“We know there is no quick-fix solution to ending child labour, but long-term approaches can yield impressive results,’’ said Harpal Singh, Chairman, Save the Children India.
Breakthrough will generate communication material and provide information on gender discrimination at school and national level in two pilot districts, Jhajjar and Rohtak, and will train Save the Children to scale it up in all 7 project districts, which include Bathinda, Muktsar Sahib, Mansa and Fazilka (earlier part of Ferozepur) in Punjab and Hisar, Sirsa and Fatehabad in Haryana.