NGO hopes to rescue 30,000 child workers in RP
By Romy G. Amarado
Visayas Bureau
First Posted 17:56:00 02/20/2008
DUMAGUETE CITY, Philippines -- A non-government organization is implementing a program in Negros Oriental and eight other areas to bring down the incidence of child labor through education.
Daphne Culanag, project director of the US-based World Vision (WV) Philippines said their program Pag-aaral ng Bata para sa Kinabukasan [Child’s Education for the Future] intended to rescue 30,000 children engaged in the worst forms of child labor in Metro Manila, Negros Oriental, Negros Occidental, Iloilo, Cebu, Leyte, Bulacan, Camarines Norte, and Davao del Sur.
Culanag pointed to the high incidence of child labor in these areas, where children aged 9 to 17 worked in sugar cane plantations, deep-sea fishing, mining and quarrying, pyrotechnics production, domestic work and prostitution.
The program would like to take away the child laborers from the work place and bring them to schools instead, she said.
Culanag said the program was designed to raise the awareness of people, especially the parents, of education’s importance in children’s development, as well as the hazards of child labor.
It also aims to improve access to quality education, strengthen the educational institutions at the local level and pilot sustainable alternative livelihood. She said specific activities of the program would be related to these objectives.
The program, which the WV has been spearheading in partnership with Christian Children's Fund, Research Development Assistance Foundation and Plan Philippines, is in its second phase, according to Culanag.
She said they have been implementing the program's second phase in Bayawan City, Bais City and Mabinay town. There are about 7,000 child laborers in these areas.
In Negros Oriental, the first phase of the program covered the cities of Bayawan and Bais as well as the municipalities of Mabinay, Ayungon, Bindoy, Siaton, Sta. Catalina and Basay where some 7,000 children benefited.
Under the program's first phase implemented from August 2003 until March 2007, some 31,000 children from these target areas, except Leyte, were returned to school, she said. Leyte was included only in the second phase of the program.
The US Department of Labor gave a grant of $5 million for the first phase and a similar amount for the second phase, Culanag said.
For the first phase, Culanag said WV Philippines and its partners raised a counterpart fund of $2.8 million.
However, she did not disclose how much WV Philippines and its partners would put up as counterpart fund for the second phase.
The project supported the Philippine government's vision to reduce the worst forms of child labor by 75 percent by 2015, she added.
The government, through the Department of Labor and Employment, Department of Education, Department of Social Welfare and Development, Interior and Local Government and local government units, also support the program.
Culanag and her group made a presentation about the program to local government officials, headed by Governor Emilio Macias II late last week.
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