From Child Labour to College: Support Her Future

Dear Supporters,

I am happy to update you with some exciting new developments in the last months. Due to the success of the 'Child Rights' model utilized by our project partners NISD, we applied for and have received funding from the UK Government  (Department for International Development) to run an expanded version of this project for 3 three years. DFID are now funding 70% of this expanded project, with Karuna raising the remainder.

Additional elements of the project include:

Supplementary nutrition provided to all children, twice a day.

Books, uniforms and educational materials distributed to the thousand poorest children. 

Community-Led Total Sanitation' programme - raising awareness amongst at least 9,000 people on such issues as water handling, food hygiene and disposal of human and animal waste, and encourage construction and use of toilets and soak pits by at least 2,350 families.

Self-help Groups (SHGs) and Vocational Training - 200 women’s SHG leaders will improve their literacy and financial skills, learn how to access resources and start small businesses. This learning will be shared will 4,000 women. 800 youths will receive training in areas relevant to the local market such as plumbing, electricity, hospital assistance and jewellery making. 

Though the new activities were only recently expanded, the project team have been quick in implementing them. Since April: 

• A survey has been conducted of all the school children in the locality to establish attendance levels and economic background.
• 17 new villages identified for the project to be rolled out in and activities commenced.
• 18 new pre-school centers established and classes started.
• 25 new study support classes started.
• Survey of facilities in all the schools in the locality will soon be completed. This will tell us about sanitation, general maintenance, and safety of the facilities.
• The project is just completing final staff interviews in order to have a full project team.
• Work at village level has started by meeting with the local parliament and gaining their trust in the project.
• The school enrollment campaigns have started to encourage parents to send their children to school, including poster campaign and village level awareness meetings.

We wish the project team success with their continuing work, and shall be keeping you updated with the progress.

Thank you, as always, for your support.