The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Learn to say no to child labour

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Dec 06, 2004

Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Learn to say no to child labour

By Sahana Charan

BANGALORE, DEC. 5. Hundreds of children in the age group of six to 14 from various schools will get to see the bitter side of childhood.

These schoolchildren will be sensitised on child labour and on discrimination of children from Dalit and other vulnerable communities in the area of education between December 6 and 10 in the city.

New Entity for Social Action (NESA), a network of voluntary organisations working for the welfare of Dalit, Adivasi and other underprivileged groups, will organise street theatre performances at six Bangalore schools as part of a campaign called "Say no to child labour, yes to education."

The campaign, which aims at targeting around 700 schoolchildren, is being conducted as a run up to the World Human Rights Day (December 10).

Street plays

A group of 14 children, all of them Dalits from very poor rural backgrounds, attached to Glow, a partner non-governmental organisation of NESA, will present the street plays on child rights.

Glow work for the protection of rights of children and the youth in rural areas and is based in Tirapattur of Vellore district in Tamil Nadu, a NESA representative said.

NESA aims at integrating close to 5,000 underprivileged children into mainstream schools through this campaign.

According to a research study conducted on working of schools in Tumkur district in the State, the school day (study time spent by students each day in a school) was significantly shorter in villages, which had high concentration of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes than compared to other schools.

Teachers absent

The study found that this was mostly because a majority of the teachers in these schools did not stay in the villages and belonged to the "upper or dominant" castes.

They displayed a distinctive negative attitude towards the education of children of "lower" castes, the study revealed.

Moreover 54 per cent of children dropped out by the time they reach the eighth standard. Many child labourers worked with explosives, metals and poisonous gases from the time they were four years old.

All these facts and the need for education of children from backward communities will be highlighted through the street plays.

Discrimination

"We have found that children are often taught by parents to discriminate against their classmates who might be Dalits or from other backward communities.

They get the idea that such children were not entitled to receive good education.

The campaign intends to raise awareness on rights of underprivileged children among urban school-going kids," the NESA representative said.

As part of the campaign, NESA is selling bookmarks to help support the education of these children.

For details, call 25483642.

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