How education can support child labour reduction in Malawi

LILONGWE (ILO News) – Japan Tobacco International (JTI) Officers from Brazil, Switzerland, Tanzania and Zambia visited the ILO Achieving Reduction of Child Labour in Support of Education (ARISE) Project in Malawi to monitor best practices and get practical knowledge on the ground.

The JTI team visited the Msambo Service Outlet Centre which is one of the centres providing different services to children withdrawn and prevented from Child Labour. The Centre provides complementary basic education (CBE) using the Government Developed Syllabus which has been reviewed and which incorporated Child Labour issues using ILO SCREAM methodology.

Some of the Children visited by the Team showcased what ARISE project has empowered them to do and become. Graduates from the ILO ARISE Service Outlet Centres are now providing services to the communities and are competing well with those who have been in the industries such as tailoring, carpentry and brick laying for a long time.

Some of the graduates in appreciation are back in the centres providing teaching services to the newly enrolled children on a voluntary basis.

JTI team Leader and ARISE Project Manager, Renata Bruzova, expressed content to see children removed and prevented from the shackles of Child labour and have been rehabilitated and supported to go back to school.

Faced with myriad of problems, Tobacco growing communities in Malawi now realises the need to efficiently educate their children.

“Previously we didn’t think of child labour, neither did we know its consequences. We thought we were training our children to become responsible farmers when they grow up into adulthood”, concluded Emma Ngola.

CHILD LABOUR IN MALAWI

Child Labour continues to press hard on the future productivity of children in Malawi as most of them do not go to school due to poverty, lack of role models, high illiteracy levels of parents and unfavourable conditions in the agricultural production sector that engages children in labour. The ARISE project has been working with various stakeholders to implement strategic interventions to address these gaps and challenges.