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CONTEXT FOR ENTRY
In the 80s, the match &fireworks industries of Sivakasi had manychild labourers. An International Study in 1992 estimated that there were more than 100,000 child laborer’s at Sivakasi. Childrenbelow 14 years were about 55% of the total workers. In 1989, a fatal accident occurred in which a minibus owned by afireworks industry, full of children aged 5 – 16 submerged in water on the causeway. 49 children drowned on the spot. This incident made SPEECH include the prevention of child labor as one of its major objectives.
As a starting point of its commitment to deprived children, SPEECH entered the National Child Labour Project (NCLP), opening a special school for children removed from labour at Duraisamypuram in 1989 with 50 children. By 2000, the number of children increased to150. Factory owners were not in favour of implementing NCLP and threatened parents if they did not send children to factories. But with community support, SPEECH facilitated enrolment of NCLP children into regular schools, and conducted bridge courses so that children could get mainstreamed.
SPEECH started to give vocational training to older children. It provided tailoring, electrical wiring and two wheeler mechanics skills – helping youth turn away from hazardous occupations to safer activities.
Effective child protection has widened into the villages starting up Children Resource Centres. While these centres are primarily for tuition, SPEECH concentrates on developing the talents of thechildren. Spaces for the centres are generally contributed by the community, and SPEECH has built up several Children Resources Centresas an accessible building for all children of the communities.
An E-Learning kit (laptop, speaker and Wi-Fi dongle) was distributed to 34 of the resource centres. SPEECH also provided training for the centre facilitators on computer operation and internet skills.Access to group activities and joint studying was created for 1275 children aged 6 – 13.
SPEECH aims to increase its impact through creating models. One such model is the Child Parliament. We believe that the success of Indian development lies in the fullness of life of the rural communities and participation of all Communities without any discrimination in the decision making. To support this, SPEECH wanted to train young people in the 73rd Amendment of Panchayati Raj and UN declaration on Child Rights. To do this, SPEECH developed the Children Panchayat Program in Sivakasivillages and initiated the Girl Children Panchayats at Tiruchuli.