Guyana

Title of Pilot Programme

Rehabilitation of Child Labourers and Prevention of Child Labour in Parika, WCD, Guyana

Implementing Agency

The Varqa Foundation

Duration

October 2004 – November 2005.

Target Group

Children involved in urban work e.g. vending, loading and transporting, and agriculture

Programme Objective

This action programme will be implemented over a 12-month period and will work directly with child workers, their families and the communities to:

• withdraw and rehabilitate 75 working children from exploitative and hazardous employment by providing remedial education (literacy, numeracy and life skills) to prepare them for placement in mainstream education and/or apprenticeship programmes.
• prevent 200 children who are `at risk,’ from entering child labour

Programme Strategy

The strategy of the Varqa Foundation (VF) is to address identified needs and contribute towards a change process for large numbers of children and youth in Guyana. The proposed interventions include the following:

• Identifying the exploitative/hazardous work that children are involved in and identifying beneficiaries for the programme.
• Direct support in the form of counselling, diagnostic testing and skill training to children withdrawn from or at risk of becoming involved in exploitative and hazardous child labour.
• Counselling for parents
• Collaboration and partnership with a number of governmental agencies, social partners and NGOs, teachers, schools, faith-based organizations and the wider community in general.
• Adoption of a holistic approach which takes account of the social, health and educational needs of working children, their families and communities to which they belong.
• Small stipends to assist the poorest families with transportation costs and snacks to attend training sessions.
• A mentoring programme - linkage with older youth
• A public education component. The children themselves will play a key role in this education component. Workshops will be held with children, parents, educators, employers’ and workers’ representatives and community leaders to reflect on child labour issues and develop their own community action plan.

The children are exposed to the `On the Wings of Words’ literacy training programme that the Varqa Foundation has developed over a decade and which has trained more than 7,000 children and youth throughout the country. The literacy training is complemented by focusing on Life Skills training. This includes material from the ‘Youth Can Move the World’ training programme and will deal with interpersonal relations, peer pressure, sexuality, conflict resolution and becoming your true self. Skills training in the areas of computer technology will also be given to those who show the aptitude. Such courses will be offered to ex-child labourers as an alternative ‘career path.’ Where possible, children will also be placed with skilled trades people where they can learn vocational skills for future employment. A key ingredient in the remedial education programme is the need to mould the self-esteem of the children.

Some of the specific inputs of the programme include:

• pre-testing to establish a baseline of academic skills and self-esteem measures which could be used to assess the effectiveness of the overall programme;
• on-going monitoring and evaluation to assess the progress of the child socially and academically;
• child participation to ensure that children are involved in charting the direction of the programme at all stages;
• selection of parents for training;
• feasibility studies to identify possible income generation projects;
• training of parents in income generation projects; and
• providing assistance for the development of business ventures