Building a Future for Brick Kiln Children in India

Jayesh is 11 years old and has been participating in our project for just over a year. He now regularly participates in education, but this wasn't always the case.

Like many children whose parents migrate to work on the brick kilns, Jayesh was a child labourer. As families are paid by a piece-rate (per brick), this incentivises families to involve their children in the back-breaking work of moulding, creating and baking bricks by hand. Jayesh was working 12 hours a day, alongside his parents waking up very early in the morning to start work before the sun got too hot.  

The family were in serious debt to the brick-kiln owner and were working to pay back the loan they had accrued. This form of bonded labour traps families in poverty, and Jayesh and his three siblings were suffering from malnutrition due to lack of money and time to buy good food for the family.

When our project worker visited the brick factory where he worked, they persuaded his parents to send him to our non-formal education classes. At first, his parents were reluctant to send him as they did not understand the value of education, when the family priority was ensuring that they repaid their debts and met their basic needs for shelter and food. Jayesh was not ready to go to school as he was concerned about his family. Our project workers visited his family regularly to persuade them to give education a chance. They picked him up for the non-formal education class every day and made sure that he was given special attention in class. Now, he comes regularly to school on his own.

Now, Jayesh and his parents have developed a lot of positive thinking about education. He actively participates in his lessons and has made good progress. He constantly helps the teachers and gets involved in all the activities. He has developed well academically. The project is counselling the family so that they will agree to send Jayesh to a residential hostel in the next school year. This will enable Jayesh to focus more on his studies and will avoid the risk of him returning to child labour.

The family also have greater hopes for their future and are seeing a way out of brick kiln labour. Our project has inspired the family to also start a small business alongside the brick kiln work, which has started to improve their income.

We hope that Jayesh will now continue in school and go on to complete his School Completion Certificate, opening up more options for his future.