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Run for Refugees at the Chichester Half

15/6/2016

 
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World Refugee Week (20th - 26th June) commemorates the strength, courage and perseverance of millions of refugees. In support, we are launching a ‘Run for Refugees’ challenge to fundraise for the many refugee children we work with.

Each year Children on the Edge organises the Chichester Half Marathon together with Everyone Active. In 2016 we are looking for 100 'Team Children on the Edge' runners to raise £100 for refugee children.

Our work includes the provision of protection, education and support in trauma recovery for Syrian refugee children in Lebanon, Rohingya refugee children in Bangladesh and internally displaced children in in Kachin State, Burma.


Always on the move - Aya’s story

Aya is a 12 year old Syrian refugee who, together with her parents and four siblings, were forced to  flee to Lebanon. The whole family lived in a tiny tarpaulin construction in a refugee camp in Bekaa Valley. Having lost everything her parents would go out each day to find work and leave Aya to care for the other children.

After talking with teachers from the tent schools we support, her mother decided that Aya could start attending. At first she was shy, but slowly became incredibly motivated. One teacher said “We often see her studying Arabic or maths or practicing her English outside of class, even over holidays. She quickly caught up with the rest of her peers and is a bright, perceptive, caring student.”

Soon after this, the military arrived and ordered the evacuation of the entire camp. They had nowhere to go. The team running the schools decided to build their own camp, where families could be safe. Aya’s father ended up helping to look for land to rent and sharing ideas about how the camp could be a safe and peaceful place. He volunteered to help a team of builders take down the current school and reconstruct it at the new site.

Aya and her family have since moved into the new camp and have opened a small grocery shop from their tent. The children are now all in the new school and their parents are instrumental in the functioning of the camp. Project leader Nuna Matar says “They look like new people”. 

£97 can help run a tent school in Lebanon for one day, helping 100 Syrian refugee children come to school. So with a small amount of fundraising from you, we can make a big difference.

Whether you're running the Chichester Half Marathon course, the Ten Miler or Team Relay, you can be part of Team Children on the Edge and raise funds for refugee children.

Starting on Monday 20th June (World Refugee Day) until the end of July we are running a special discount code to get £10 off your entry fee when you commit to raising £100. Simply register for the race, enter the code RunforRefugees10.

Sign up for the Chichester half
Find out more about our work.

A day in the life of a working child - tackling the affects of child labour in Bangladesh

9/6/2016

 
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Today is the World Day Against Child Labour.  Launched in 2002 by The International Labour Organization (ILO) this is a day to focus attention on the global extent of child labour and the action and efforts needed to eliminate it. Each year on 12 June, the World Day brings together governments, employers and workers organisations, civil society, as well as millions of people from around the world to highlight the plight of child labourers and what can be done to help them.

Children on the Edge combat child labour through the development of community led child protection, the provision of quality education and, when the need arises we facilitate more targeted work.

Although prohibited by the Labour Act (2006), there are nearly 3.2 million working children aged between 5-17 throughout Bangladesh, many in hazardous conditions. Since the collapse of the Rana Plaza building in Bangladesh, which killed over 1,100 garment factory workers and injured some 2,500 more, there has been an increased focus on the ills of child labour and working conditions in the country’s ready-made garment (RMG) sector. What is less focussed on is working children in areas like Cox’s Bazar.

Children here work in the fish markets, or along the coast line selling shell bracelets and catching prawns. Some act as tour guides or sell water. These children have no funding or time to attend school, and little chance to enjoy the opportunities that should be inherent in childhood.

Many of the schools for working children we support in Bangladesh can be found at the centre of crowded, labyrinthine slums in Cox’s Bazar. The narrow alleys are jammed with tin roofed huts, lines of drying fish, and swarms of mosquitos hover over the puddles left from the last downpour. The people here live on borrowed land, having lost their own homes through the frequent cyclones and floods that occur in this part of the country.

The nine schools are modest buildings, bursting with life and colour. Drawings and paintings are strewn over the walls, with creations of all sorts hanging from the ceilings. These children are from some of the poorest families in the world, and have to spend much of their time earning an income for their parents, or even looking after the entire household. Their time here though, is sacrosanct. It’s a time where they can just be children, they can create, learn, play and express themselves, free from the burden of adult responsibilities.

On one of our visits we met Kaamil, who loves to sing. He’s exceptionally talented, with a mesmerising voice and a big smile. He is 10 years old and the teacher tells us that later he will have to sing on the beach to make money. 
“I like to sing, but not to have to go to the beach and sing for money. I wish I did not have to work at all. If I could change anything about my life it would be this.”

Kaamil lives in a slum called Kutadiapora. His mother has died and his father left them and does not send any money to help him and his sister. His sister is older, so he lives with her and his brother in law, who earns a little money driving a tuk tuk.

We ask Kaamil to describe his an average day, he said “I wake up at 6.00 in the morning, I live in a hut made of tin and fence and there are two rooms. There are four of us here including my cousin. I do like it here because there are trees and I like to sit in them, but the rain causes trouble, the sea rises and floods the slum, it comes into our home. 
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I get to school at 9.00am which I love! My favourite things to do are singing, drawing pictures and playing. After school I have some lunch, and then I go and sing for tourists at the beach. I make 200-300 TK from doing this. The school has even helped with this though, when I earn money on the beach now I can count it. People in our area do not like children who don’t learn, but they respect me now. When I finish the work at the beach I go home and I study and do my homework!”.

The flexible community school model meets the educational needs children like Kaamil close to where they live and work, whilst working closely with their families to foster greater understanding of the importance of education. Alongside crucial literacy and numeracy education emphasis is placed upon creative expression and play, with daily time assigned for art, dance or group play.

Staff also work alongside children’s families,  encouraging long term commitment to and support for their children’s education and consequently a reduction in child labour and child marriage.

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​Share this story with the hashtag #childlabour
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We support 900 working children to access education, nutrition and play through nine Community Schools in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh.

Tackling child labour: Syrian refugee children in Lebanon

9/6/2016

 
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Syrian refugee children play in the newly established Mercy Foundation camp in Bekaa Valley
Today is the World Day Against Child Labour.  Launched in 2002 by The International Labour Organization (ILO) this is a day to focus attention on the global extent of child labour and the action and efforts needed to eliminate it. Each year on 12 June, the World Day brings together governments, employers and workers organisations, civil society, as well as millions of people from around the world to highlight the plight of child labourers and what can be done to help them.

Children on the Edge combat child labour through the development of community led child protection, the provision of quality education and, when the need arises we facilitate more targeted work.

The Bekaa Valley region where we support a number of tent schools for Syrian refugee children, is the area of Lebanon that hosts the largest number of Syrian refugees (378,000, or 35 per cent of all refugees), and it is also the region where the majority of informal tented settlements are located.

This setting facilitates the massive recruitment of children into child labour, often undertaken by camp leaders to local employers. The Lebanese host communities in Bekaa are also among the most vulnerable communities in the country, making children more vulnerable to being exploited (1). 
The opportunity to learn in the tent schools provides a general level of protection from child labour, but because of the vulnerability of the Syrian refugee communities, there is a need for additional focus from the Mercy Foundation team.  Teachers on the programme have picked up a lack of support from some parents who are facing poverty and do not understand the value of education in comparison with the chance of their children providing for the family. 

Education Co-ordinator Nadine Morcos said “Many of the parents are illiterate and many will only encourage the children to go to school if it is local and only up until they are able to work in the fields, or carpentry, or a mechanic shop etc. Many students leave school to work and to help parents and carers to support younger siblings this makes them feel older and more important and their peers look up to them because of it.”

The team are targeting this by organising school events, parent visits to view the children’s work and to take part in their learning, and teacher-parent meetings to discuss school updates. They are also talking with local employers and looking to introduce a literacy programme for women and to involve parents in extra curricular activities such as art and crafts and holiday activities to help them to better engage with the programme. 

The potato harvest season is the time when exploitation is at its highest, often coming from camp leaders who make it a part of the rent deal. One way our partners have tackled this is the building of their own refugee camp, a safe place for families with fair rent contracts. In the other camps where the tent schools are situated, they have created contracts between the schools and the landowners stopping them from taking the children out of school to work.
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Find out more about the project
Consider donating to this work
Share this story with the hashtag #childlabour

(1) ILO-UNICEF  ‘Tackling child labour among Syrian refugees and their host communities in Lebanon’  2015

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Typical harvesting work for refugees outside the camps.

Uganda Playscheme 2016 introduces us to the children of Loco

7/6/2016

 
Since the start of the year our Child Protection Team has been working in Loco slum community in Uganda, building relationships and providing a series of community led child protection trainings. Part of their work here has identified a gap in the provision of education for younger children and this month we have broken the ground in the building of a brand new Early Childhood Development (ECD) Centre in Loco.

As a result of talks with the community and in preparation for the ECD programme, we needed to introduce ourselves to the children by organising a week full of hope, life, colour and fun. This materialised in our first ever playscheme in Loco.

Hosted by Children on the Edge Africa, with volunteers from both Montezuma’s Chocolates and The Body Shop At Home™, the playscheme was attended by over 300 children who enjoyed a huge array of activities from sports, crafts, parachute games and a morning on a bouncy castle. 

Not only this, but with the emergence of serious health problems in the community during the week, the team adapted the programme to provide a full day’s training on health and hygiene with songs about hand washing and puppet shows on keeping clean and safe from illness.

Volunteer Pam Alcock aid “We all worked together to give the children a fun but educational week that they can use and pass on to everyone in their community, making Loco a cleaner safer place for them to live. It has been a privilege”.

The team spent an afternoon with the Child Protection Team  (CPT) in Loco, gaining an understanding of the many issues that threaten the safety of children in the area, and the ways in which the CPT are working with the community to address them. They were able to visit the Loco area, as well as Masese I and Masese III.  All three of these areas are slum communities that we have recently begun working with, where people are facing appalling conditions.

“Visiting Masese I, II and III gave me the understanding of the progression that is possible” said one of our volunteers, Becky Holmes, “but also the desperate conditions that these communities are facing”.

The volunteers also spent some time in Masese II where we have been working for over three years. Here they were able to see the transformation that is possible as the area has become cleaner and brighter, with evidence of some thriving small businesses sparked by the Child Protection Team’s micro loan scheme.

“The team were fantastic” said Ben Wilkes, Head of UK “They were adaptable and resourceful, creating a colourful, exciting and educational week for the children at a crucial point of the project. This was our first visible activity in Loco community after months of working behind the scenes providing training and building relationships. It was a great introduction and a vital step as we work towards the launch of Early Childhood Development programme”.

Co-founder and Director of Montezuma’s Chocolates, Helen Pattinson said “Thanks to Children on the Edge, these people have hope, life, colour and fun and I am proud to have been a small part of that process.  I am so happy to have seen in detail how COTE work within a community to make small changes to help themselves.  This is a sustainable, long term solution to essentially basic problems (by our first world standards) and I can truly see how the impact of their work will have positive outcomes for the children of Loco who we have fallen a little bit in love with this week".

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Masese II Pilot Project - Creating a protective environment for children in Uganda

1/6/2016

 
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​When we first visited Uganda, children in Masese II, a slum just outside Jinja, were at risk of malnutrition, abuse and child sacrifice. Brewing and distilling alcohol in dangerous and unlicensed breweries was the area's primary economic activity and conditions in the slum were appalling. Children were being exposed to extreme hazards around the brewing areas and were even fed the dregs of the alcohol mix.

With no place to go throughout the day, children were extremely vulnerable. Child abuse was common and continual exposure to inebriated men and prostitution left children at greater risk of abuse and HIV.

Child sacrifice was a growing issue in the Masese II community, and children left unattended throughout the day, or wandering any distance from home, were at risk. With no productive livelihoods, no access to education or healthcare, widespread malnutrition and no safe place to play and simply enjoy being children, there was little hope for the children who live here.

Through establishing a Child and Community Centre together with the Adolescent Development Support Network (ADSN), we provided early years education for children under 5 and educational support for children of primary school age. This Centre also provided nutritious meals in order to reduce child malnutrition and improve health.

A Child Protection Team (CPT) mobilised local people to care for their children more effectively and receive support and advice on parenting, health, nutrition and preventing abuse. The area is now cleaner, child abuse has lessened and incidents of child sacrifice have been eradicated for over 3 years.

Vulnerable households began to meet their own needs through the agricultural component of the project. This included micro-finance schemes,  comprehensive agricultural training, land and inputs. With this alternative to providing income and sourcing nutritious food, 9 out of the 14 breweries have now closed down.

After the success of this pilot project we maintain support of the Child Protection Team here and have passed on the management of other elements of the project to local partners.

The Masese II Child Protection Team are instrumental in helping us train up new teams as we replicate this work in the wider district. We are currently focussing on the neighbouring communities of Loco, Masese I, and Masese III. 

READ ABOUT OUR CURRENT WORK IN UGANDA
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​Children on the Edge, 5 The Victoria, 25 St Pancras, Chichester,  West Sussex, PO19 7LT, UK | 01243 538530 | office@childrenontheedge.org 
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