Our End to Child Labour project has been chosen by the Charity Awards as one of the top 3 of all International Aid and Development projects worldwide. Following a year of investigation, careful planning and the release of the VICE documentary sharing the story of our work, this important issue is gaining momentum and the attention it deserves.
We are all really touched as so much work has gone into ensuring children stop working in brick factories and are given an opportunity to go to school, often for the first time in their lives. For the past 23 years charities with best practice delivering sustainable projects have been awarded the most prestigious Charity Awards and we are beyond excited to be selected as one of only 3 charities working in the International Development sector.
We received the news while I was with our teachers, social workers and the children in Rautahat. After seeing how wonderfully the project is progressing, I was so excited to share the news with the staff who had helped turn it all into reality.
All 93 children are attending our classes. All have just started regular school. An additional 12 children wanted to join our classes and we just couldn’t say no – we are so happy even more children from the area are receiving good quality education. And most importantly, none of the children are working – now they get to go to school, have playtime, and make new friends, they are really happy just being children. We hope to be able to start replicating and expanding the project soon to help the 1,000s of children still working at other brick factories.
The winners will be announced on the 7th June. For us, just getting to this shortlist stage means so much and we wanted to share the good news with all our friends and supporters.
Thank you for being there for us!
