Building a Future for Brick Kiln Children in India

We recently carried out an evaluation of this project to assess its effectiveness and impact over the past 3 years. Here are some key findings:

• The project has reached 1708 children so far
• The project has worked intensively for 3 years with 289 of these children
• The project has increased the impact of its programme by providing health care and nutrition for children attending its non-formal schools. This encourages attendance at the programme and helps support the children's development
• Partnerships with local village schools have enhanced the learning resources provided and created a support network with experienced teachers who have provided input into the curriculum
• The project has established relationships with the schools from the native villages of these children to ensure that they remain enrolled, have accurate school records and are progressed into higher standards.
• Students beneficiaries of all the programmes have made notable progress in developing 3 R and minimum competencies concerning academic progress.
•  All of the non-formal education students who appeared for the 4^th standard have passed with B or B+ grade.
• One area of improvement that the project will be focusing on going forward is increasing the confidence of the children. This is largely due to societal prejudices against their families which impact on the way the children see themselves.
• The project is also exploring sending the more promising students to hostels where they can get intensive holistic educational support, increasing the likelihood of them being able to break free from labouring in brick kilns

The project team has reached a conclusion that the children who complete 4^th standard must be separated from the brick kiln environment to avoid the risk them getting involved in brick kiln work. Once they start earning it is difficult to convince the parents and the children to allow children to continue education.  Hence this is strongly felt that the project must find ways to send these children to go to hostels after 5^th standard. This area of work is what we will be working on to develop going forward.