Emily Sandall Foundation

Emily Sandall Memorial Grant Awards Winter 2009

The Emily Sandall Memorial Foundation and the International Initiative to End Child Labor are pleased to announce the winter 2009 selected grantees. There are a total of four awards spanning four regions of the world. The countries where awards are being made include: Liberia, Yemen, Peru and the United States. Below is a brief description of the activities to be funded:

ANPACAN—Liberia

Child labor in Liberia is widespread due largely to war, poverty and the general breakdown of social services. Children and youth work in activities as domestic labor, farms, plantations (including rubber) and other businesses. However, other forms of work that children can be found in is street labor, portering heavy loads, selling, begging and used for criminal activity and hard labor. The project funded will train 25 peer educators on issues of child protection, child labor and advocacy. These peer educators will serve as a catalyst for social change influencing their peers regarding the elimination of child labor. They will advocate for ILO Convention 182 on the Elimination of the worst forms of child labor and ratification of ILO Convention 138 on establishing the Minimum Age of Work. This will be achieved through peer educators conducting role plays, debates, drawing, and quizzing on child labor issues throughout their communities. Through these activities, the elimination of child labor will be mainstreamed in advocating for policy reforms and the protection of child against child labor. A training manual for peer educators will be developed as well as scripts for plays and topics for debates.

Emily’s impressions: Emily would love this project and the idea of empowering peer educators to be part of the training. She spent many years working with and educating disadvantaged children to better their lives and opportunities, and to be a catalyst for change.

Asia –Near East

CHF—Yemen

Yemen is one of the poorest and least developed countries in the world, and has one of the highest population growth rates, with more than 46% of the population younger than 15 years of age. It is estimated that more than 10% of children work in hazardous conditions, many starting by age 7, in agriculture, fishing, and trafficking of goods and children across borders. Primary factors for the high incidence of child labor in Yemen include low quality education, inadequate social protection, and a social acceptance of child labor as a means for families to escape dire poverty. CHF Yemen’s activities to conduct outreach campaigns and events, some funded through a prior Emily grant, were very successful inspiring children, parents, local sheikhs and businessmen to assist with withdrawing children from child labor and helping them to access quality education. Building on the success, the Emily grant will support the organization of a follow-up art event with working children. The art project will engage 40 Yemeni working children giving them the opportunity to use paint, pencils, and photography and film, encouraging children to document their own lives for worldwide audiences. Through artistic expression and media, the children can share their understanding, their experiences, their concerns, and their dreams with other children.

Emily’s impressions: Emily had done many of these activities in US schools to educate children about International child labor issues. She would be very enthusiastic about this project and its educational value for US and Yemen’s children.

North America

Media Voices for Children—United States

Media Voices for Children is committed to using the internet and the power of social networking and distributed media to build a network of activists and activity, reaching the mainstream media, educational community and the general public. MVC is in the process of producing a video entitled, “The Harvest.” This video will describe the plight of America’s migrant child farm laborers, working in the fields in the United States. The video highlights the conditions and needs of these children and their hopes of one day achieving an education so that they can leave the fields for a better life. The video also describes the inequity of the laws in the US for these children—lacking in equal protection that is afforded other children. Children working in agriculture in the US continue to struggle under a patchwork of state regulations and a nearly complete lack of federal protection. They are working long hours in the hot sun, picking our fruits and vegetables, exposed to dangerous working conditions and pesticides, and struggling to stay in and complete school. The result is a permanent underclass of children living at or below the poverty line. Emily’s grant will provide a small support to assist Media Voices for Children to complete their work on the video.

Emily’s impressions: This project would be very dear to Emily’s heart. She had been very interested to set up a position as a teacher to migrant farmworker children .Again she would feel that a video is a wonderful tool to educate about the issue and dangers for migrant child laborers.

South America

Paul Robert Kowalcyzk—Peru

Cajamarca, Peru has one of the highest percentages of child laborers in Peru. In Peru, 26.5% of children ages 6 to 17 worked outside their home. In the region of Cajamarca, 13.3% of this same age group worked exclusively; 36.9% both worked and tried to attend school; and only 46.3% attended school only. While in many countries the numbers of children working decreases slowly, in Peru the numbers are increasing. The future for these children is very bleak. Efforts by a coalition of groups known as CEREPETI have produced an educational video entitled, “Niño Trabajador,” including instructional materials presented through a workshop format, has met with good success. However, more needs to be done to build upon the projects current success and expand the availability of this valuable resource. Emily’s grant will support the cost of producing 350 additional copies of the DVD of the video, including case, label and educational inserts. This would allow a continuation of the workshops providing awareness toward the prevention of child labor in the Cajamarca region of Peru.

Emily’s impressions: Emily would love this project. It uses creativity and drama to portray the dangers of child labor. She strongly believed in the effective use of video and music to educate about child labor issues.

Santa Fe, New Mexico, is an important laboratory in migration and politics. First an indigenous community, then a Spanish outpost, and finally a diverse American city, Santa Fe now receives immense numbers of migrants.
Unfortunately, their children are not immune from discrimination, prejudice, and struggle. In 2009, Shine a Light began a long term project on migration and children, using the same pedagogical and artistic tools that have been so successful with street kids, working children, ex-child soldiers, and other marginalized groups. In May, 2009, the children from the Hopewell-Mann neighborhood created a video production group to create the fantasy-comedy “Entering another World,” a profound meditation on the experience of living in and negotiating a world that isn’t one’s own.
We hope that this project will become a model for other groups working on education, social integration, and social justice for immigrant groups.
Over this last year, Shine a Light helped kids share their comic instincts, from a comedy-fantasy movie made by migrant children in Santa Fe, New Mexico to a YouTube soap opera made by indigenous teenagers in Bolivia. When the young filmmakers, their families, and their communities laugh at these comedies on the big screen, it strengthens them to struggle another day… And for people who live comfortable lives far from the favela, this kind of humor breaks down prejudices.

This has always been Shine a Light’s wager: that people will want to help others not out of pity, but out of hope. That when we see a spark of genius from a kid destined by poverty to fail, we want to change that destiny.
(excerpts from Kurt Shaw, Shine a Light’s Executive Director)

This was Emily’s vision, as well. “To give a voice to those kids less fortunate.” The Emily Sandall Foundation is proud to again help support Shine a Light’s Migraciones Project.