Emily Sandall Memorial Youth Grant Awardees for 2008 [May 2008]
On behalf of the International Initiative to End Child Labor’s (IIECL) Board of Directors and Staff and the Emily Sandall Foundation, it is with great pleasure that we announce the spring 2008 recipients for the Emily Sandall Memorial Grant Awards. A total of five awards are being presented at this time. The selection was a difficult one among all of the worthy applicants. Due to the response, a second round of applications will be announced in the fall of 2008.
The following provides an overview of the organizations and individuals receiving awards at this time and a reflection on how Emily might have viewed these activities to address the needs of children, support their education, and eliminate exploitive child labor:
Africa
Kenya Christian Women Partners (CWP) – An Emily Sandall Memorial Grant is being provided to CWP, a civil society organization working with the fisher folk communities of Mageta Island and Usenge beaches. The grant will enable the CWP to train HIV/AIDS orphans and other vulnerable children on how to develop a Memory Book / Will Writing and Family Tree to document the lives of their families and helping them to deal with their grief and feelings of loss. Additionally, CWP will undertake activities to reduce beach fishing child labor and exploitation in the hard to reach area of Bondo District, Kenya along the beaches of Lake Victoria. Emily’s impressions: Emily would feel very passionate about this project as the orphans are a vulnerable population and it is a project of prevention and hope. She worked tirelessly with the street children population which was also vulnerable and had always wanted to travel to Africa to work with the HIV/AIDS population.
Asia /
Near East Nepal Nepal Orphan’s Home (NOH) – NOH is being awarded an Emily Sandall Memorial Grant to enable the children at its separate homes to create posters depicting how they would view a world without exploitive child labor. The activities will commence in June 2008. Tapping into the children’s artwork and creativity, NOH will display the posters in a common area to raise awareness about child labor issues in the broader community. NOH will also take photographs of the children participating in the poster project, which will be featured on the organization’s website and provided to IIECL for distribution. Emily’s impressions: This project speaks to Emily’s spirit so much. She lived and worked in Nepal. She would love the idea of “empowering” the children to advocate for a better world for themselves and others through their education and their artwork. It’s perfect!
India Society for Human Education and Development (SHED) – SHED is being awarded an Emily Sandall Memorial Grant for the elimination of child labor in the Manachanallur and Anthanallur blocks in Trichy District in Tamilnadu, India. SHED will establish a special school for 25 child laborers, age 9 to 14 years, released from the various trades. These children will be provided awareness-raising, education, nutritious noon meal, educational materials (books and note books), medical care, and school uniform dresses. Awareness-raising with their parents or guardians will be conducted. After the end of the school year, the children will be streamlined into formal public schools in their respective areas according to the age and needs of the child. Health and hygiene education will be given to the target children weekly on various relevant topics. Thus, the special school and skill training for child laborers, awareness-raising among the parents of child labor and the value of education will enable the progressive elimination of child labor in the targeted block in the Trichy District. Emily’s impressions: Emily would love this project. It matches very closely the school in Nepal for former and potential child-laborers for which she fund-raised and worked .She had always hoped to travel to India to work with at-risk children.
Latin America
El Salvador Co-Partners of Campesinas and La Nueva Esperanza (New Hope) – Based on the results of their 2007 Emily Sandall Memorial Grant, Co-Partners of Campesinas and La Nueva Esperanza will be provided a grant to conduct a meeting with 24 businesses to formalize apprenticeship arrangements for youth and conduct a vocational evaluation workshop for 24 youth in order to determine which apprenticeship placement would be most appropriate for each youth. In the vocational evaluation workshop, participants will take a vocational interest test, discuss their interests and test results with a counselor. They will also be placed in two or three brief vocational experience workshops in areas of the apprenticeships (metal work, auto repair, mechanical repair, baking, beauty salon, etc.) An educational meeting for participating employers on relevant sections of the Salvadoran Labor Code will be provided as well. The workshop will ensure that children are placed in the workplace most appropriate for their interests and abilities and will help ensure that employers know the appropriate labor codes for apprentices. In 2007, an Emily Sandal Memorial Grant administered by IIECL funded a community mapping of workshops and productive businesses to assess their willingness to take on apprentices. Six youth over age 14 (Salvador’s minimum working age) who were no longer in school and were potential project beneficiaries were trained to conduct interviews of workshop and business owners. The youth conducted 46 interviews. In those, 28 employers gave positive responses indicating that they would be interested in participating in the apprenticeship program. Emily’s impressions: Emily would love this project. She felt very passionately about educating children and giving them the skills/training to stay in their own communities as evidenced by her work in Mexico with street children and in the schools and shelters. She was developing a street children learning curriculum for use with her work.
North America -United States
Four Fairfax County, Virginia Middle School Teachers and Curriculum Specialists - To address the needs of older illiterate youth in rural communities in cocoa growing communities in Ghana and to try to ensure that they have access to education that is relevant to their environment and needs, four middle-school teachers in Fairfax County, Virginia are being awarded an Emily Sandall Memorial Grant to provide curriculum development assistance by re-working and improving the “Education Works in Cocoa Production Vocational Lifeskills Workbook” and converting it into a three-tier curriculum that will enable illiterate youth to attain a sixth grade level reading and math competency while learning valuable, functional vocational and other lifeskills. Their work will result in a holistic curriculum that integrates literacy, numeracy, and life skills with health and sanitation awareness, civic rights and responsibilities while providing comprehensive knowledge of job related skills in cocoa production. The curriculum will be designed to facilitate education that encompasses both the phonetic and whole language approaches to learning, thus resulting in a holistic and functional learning tool. Included with the curriculum will be teacher’s guides. Emily’s impressions: This project matches Emily’s interests so well as she was working on a curriculum for street children which incorporated lifeskills, literacy and health awareness and prevention.
