Child Labour is a major problem in Malawi. Gaining accurate data on this problem is difficult, but by all reckoning Malawi is among the worst perpetrators in Southern Africa. The issue is not clear cut, as traditionally children are required to help the family in any way they can, and for some this would traditionally have meant they leave education to work and support the family. However, the particular area that AYISE is acting against is when the activities the child is engaged in harm their education, psychological or physical health. There are many perpetrators of child labour within Malawi - some are commercial scale agriculture, some are subsistence agriculture at a small scale.

In either setting there are many issues:

• the child is often away from home for long periods of time;
• often they are not paid in the way they were promised but just provided with meager meals and poor accommodation and told that is their wage;
• too often the children are physically or sexually abused by their employers (who are sometimes family members);
• children often do not receive appropriate personal protective equipment (PPE) for example when handling tobacco, and so they can suffer illnesses such as Green Tobacco Sickness;
• and in many cases (although not all) the child's working arrangements do not allow them to also attend school.

This project focused on preventing children from entering child labour, the project builds the capacity of their families and other vulnerable children of school-going ages in Mulanje, Thyolo and Phalombe.

 

The development objective of this project was to contribute to the prevention and elimination of child labour in Thyolo, Mulanje and Phalombe districts. The immediate objectives of the project were:

• To improve income and food security of 400 vulnerable households in Mulanje, Thyolo and Phalombe districts through promotion of agriculture and income generating activities (IGAs).

• To increase pupil enrolment and retention rates in primary schools in Mulanje, Phalombe and Thyolo through provision of teaching and learning materials, and sporting equipment.

• To reduce child labour migration in Mulanje, Thyolo and Phalombe through behaviour change interventions and advocacy.

Project Achievements
The project supported 400 vulnerable households by;

• provision of farming skills and agricultural inputs to increase food security;
• training of government staff from the department of social welfare and agriculture on child labour and their role in improving food security for the beneficiary families.
• 250 vulnerable families were also identified to engage in crop diversification and were provided with farm inputs for both wetland and arable cropping.
• Quarterly meetings were conducted to monitor progress and share experiences.
• Potential markets for selling their agricultural produce were identified in collaboration with the Ministry of Agriculture.
• this project promoted livestock production at household level through livestock awareness campaigns,
• identification and training of 150 vulnerable families in small stock keeping and production,
• conducting monitoring visits with Ministry of Agriculture officials,
• the procurement and distribution of 500 chicks and 200 goats to the families.
• Potential markets for the livestock produce were also identified with the help of Ministry of Agriculture.

A woman engaged in agriculture

Furthermore,

Another achievement recognised by the beneficiaries was improved income levels of the 400 identified households through the Village Savings and Loans (VSL) scheme. To ensure this was possible, the project organised 20 savings and loans groups, trained 40 group representatives, connected the loan groups to micro finance institutions and conducted quarterly meetings with the savings and loan groups to monitor progress and share experiences.

A Village Savings and Loans group meeting

Apart from the above achievements, the project also reached out to 300 out-of-school youths who were trained in vocational and livelihood skills for a minimum of 6 months. Individuals were also identified and trained to train and act as monitors for the trained youths. The 300 youth were trained in vocations including metal work, carpentry, tailoring, hair dressing, bricklaying and entrepreneurship. They were also provided with start-up equipment for vocational work for all the afore-mentioned work, and exchange visits were facilitated among themselves to share experiences and lessons.

On the education of children in the targeted districts; the project increased pupil enrolment and retention rates in primary schools through motivation by provision of teaching, learning materials and sporting equipment. In total 600 children were prevented from dropping out of school through the provision school materials and teaching materials, sports materials and the commencement of a sports tournament among selected schools.

In keeping with the principle of child participation, the project also involved children in advocating and disseminating information on child labour through;

• procurement and distribution of paints, paint brushes and cloth for banners and pens to the schools;
• production of posters and leaflets on child labour;
• conducting competitive school debates on child labour, poems, and short story writing
• provision of awards to the best performing schools.

An outdoor classroom

Another achievement of the project was the improved capacity of officials and communities at district level in responding effectively to child labour migration issues. This was possible because the Department of Education and District Child Labour Committees were briefed and consulted through meetings which identified migration patterns, ways to combat them and the formation of enforcement and networking structures for reporting. The community leaders and local government structures were also oriented on child labour mitigation.

Furthermore the awareness of child labour among community members was improved through the production of a radio and television documentary by trained out-of-school youths. These youths had been trained in interactive drama and story writing, and conducted drama activities in the communities, including 6 community rallies on child labour.

The last achievement the project made was to advocate for a behaviour and attitude change in the community leadership in order to contribute positively to reduction of child labour.