Objectives:
1. 38750 children in 100 villages of two blocks of Mirzapur to be taken out of work, enrolled and retained in schools.
2. Network of grassroots NGOs/CBOs created fro advocacy on sustainable approaches of eliminating child labour through education and social mobilisation.


Activities Adopted
1. Establishing rapport with the community by organising meetings with communities, Panchayat leaders, opinion leaders on the issue of elimination of child labour and education.
i. Organise village-level campaigns to generate consciousness among the people on rights of child and education.
ii. Involving the community in planning and establishing the schools, identification and enrolment of the children.
iii. Encouraging and mobilising the local community to contribute in the form of land, building materials, voluntary labour, food grain, small finances, etc. which will go into a corpus for the children of the respective villages.

2. Removing children from all kinds of work in project villages and putting them into Government schools/community schools/local initiative schools and retaining them in primary schools.
i. Conducting a baseline survey of children to plan the education programme, by assessing the existing literacy levels and other important parameters by a competent external agency.
ii. Identification, recruitment and orientation of 125 volunteer teachers for community cottage schools, local initiatives and government primary schools.
iii. Enrolment of identified children.
iv. Procurement and distribution of the educational material.
v. Identification of school going dropouts/potential dropouts and then motivating the parents and the children for re-enrolment and retention.
vi. Procurement of material for preparation of supplementary nutrition and distribution to the children.

3. Building 50 community cottage schools with part assistance from community in villages
i. Selection of an appropriate site.
ii. Procurement of the construction material through funds and community support (land, labour, small finances).
iii. Construction of school building.

4. Providing need based support to government primary schools by placement of 20 volunteer teachers.
i. Enrolment of identified target children (in the age group of 5-8 years) in government run primary schools.
ii. Provide the material support to the targeted children.
iii. Provide support to the government schools by volunteer teacher support.
iv. Ensuring that government provides the needed support/ facilities to the appointed teachers.
v. Ensuring more teachers in government schools and retention of the teachers sanctioned by government.

5. Supporting 25 local initiatives of primary schools by CBOs (youth groups, Mahila Mandals) by providing 5 volunteer teachers and educational material every year.
i. Meeting with youth clubs/ Mahila Mandals/individuals for setting up and strengthening tile schools initiated by them.
ii. Provide support in terms of training, materials and honorarium to 5 volunteer teachers.

6. Training 125 local educated unemployed youth (men & women) as para teachers/volunteer teachers. In addition the Panchayat leaders and local youths would also be trained.
i. Identify and hire experts for training of volunteer teachers/Panchayat leaders/local youths and others.
ii. Develop training modules.
iii. Organise 5 training workshops every year.
iv. Provide instructional material to the teachers.

7. Strengthening and activating Village Child Labour Vigilance Committees (formed under the IPEC-ILO supported programme)
i. Organise meetings with the villagers.
ii. Form the committees with selected members of the community.
iii. Village Child Labour Vigilance Committees monitor running of the schools.
iv. Survey of non-school going children.

8. Setting up two training cum resource centres to train volunteer teachers, government primary school teachers, Panchayat leaders to develop educational material to use at child health care centres etc.
i. Selection of land for construction of building.
ii. Procurement of construction material.
iii. Construction of training cum resource centres.
iv. Equipping the centres with training material/educational material/awareness material.
v. Procurement of Audio Visual material for the training centre.

9. Improved functioning of Anganwadi Centres (A WCs) in all the 100 project villages for providing crèche facilities.
i. Activating the AWCs in the villages through community support.
ii. Co-ordinating with the block level functionary (Child Development Project Officers) of the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) for activating the AWCs
iii. Nutritional requirements of the children and the family: supplemented through kitchen gardens and thereby, ensuring a better health status of the child.
iv. Training of CREDA staff in Nutrition Education (NUTED).
v. Mobilise community to create a seed bank of seasonal vegetables to be distributed among the needy.
vi. Imparting NUTED to the children in school and community.

10. Advocacy material (newsletter, brochures, etc.)
i. Situational analysis on child education/working children.
ii. Collection of information from project area.
iii. Creation of database.
iv. Compilation of the material for Newsletter/brochures.
v. Making of one film on CREDA's experiences of elimination of child labour and child education.
vi. Public distribution and dissemination of the advocacy material.

11. Identify small grassroot level NGOs/CBOs (local youth groups, manila mandals, panchayats) requiring small grant assistance.
i. Assessment of the capacity of the organisations through field visits.
ii. Organising 10 exchange visits of volunteers from these organisations to other NGOs/CBOs with similar experience over a period of 5 years.
iii. Meeting with these NGOs/CBOs to assess the requirement of small grants.
iv. Planning the local initiatives with these organisations and making small grants available for these initiatives.
v. Conducting policy dialogue through organising workshops to promote improved policies and strategies on elimination of child labour and education.


Successes – Features/ Highlights
1. Approximately 38750 children (in the age group of 6-14 years) removed from all kinds of work in project villages and put into either Government schools/community schools/local initiative schools and retained in primary schools.
i. 4,995 CCS children who completed 2-year course in March 2002 have appeared in class 5th examination conducted by the Department of Education, Govt. of U.P. Out of these 4,995 children, 3,833 children passed in 1st division, 1156 in 2nd division and 6 children failed.
ii. 4,989 children mainstreamed in standard 6th in government and recognised private junior high schools.
iii. 5,000 working/out-of-school children have been identified and enrolled in 50 CCSs in April 2002 and have reached class 2nd and 3rd standard and are eligible for mainstreaming in class 3rd and 4th of government primary schools in January 2003.
iv. 5,000 working/out-of-school children have been identified for enrolment in 50 CCSs in January 2003 for nine-month bridge course.
v. 3,696 out-of-school children under the age 5-7 years were identified and enrolled in standard 1st in July/August 2002, in government primary schools.
vi. 1,000 dropout children identified and retained in government primary schools in classes 2nd to 5th.
vii. 5 local initiatives (NGOs) were provided need-based support in terms of teacher honorarium, teaching and learning materials for educating 250 children.
viii. 250 children completed one-year course and mainstreamed in class 2nd and 3rd of government primary school by 5 local initiatives.
ix. 35 para-teachers are working in 19 government and government aided junior high schools to augment teachers’ strength in these schools.
x. Need-based support provided to 37 government primary schools and 23 government and government aided junior high schools in terms of seating mats, chairs, tables, blackboards, etc.
xi. 409 Panchayat representatives directly involved with project activities.
xii. 2,267 different village level committee meetings organised with participation of Panchayat members, volunteers, women groups, mothers' groups and school teachers.
xiii. Close contact with the officials of Government Education Department for mainstreaming of children.
xiv. Improvement in teachers attendance in government primary schools
xv. Setting up of two training cum resource centres to train volunteer teachers, government primary school teachers, Panchayat leaders, develop educational material, to use it as child health care centres, etc.
xvi. Improved functioning of Anganwadi Centres (AWCs) in all the 100 project villages for providing creche facilities for younger children and thereby ensuring enrolment and retention of girl children in schools.
xvii. Nutritional requirements of the children and the family supplemented through kitchen gardens and thereby, ensuring a better health status of the child.

2. Linkages with existing government social development programmes through community dialogue with government officials concerned.
i. Networking of NGOs/CBOs established.
ii. 20 grassroots level NGOs were supported to prepare their project proposals to different ministries, departments. They have been provided computers services for preparation of the proposals.
iii. Linkages with other UNDP-supported programmes to fill gaps towards overall development of the community. Members of 74 village level Child Labour Vigilance Committees actively participated with project activities.
iv. A total of 23476 children were administered Pulse Polio drops in the project area during the Pulse Polio eradication campaign in 2002.
v. CREDA was approached by the Forest Department, Government of Uttar Pradesh to provide full-time services of two volunteers for Joint Forest Management programme funded by World Bank who worked on social mobilisation, village mapping, and preparation of Village Forest Micro Plan.
vi. Small grant support provided for local initiatives in different parts of the country.

3. The Panchayat representatives are taking interest in keeping vigil against the employment of children in different sector particularly carpet and agriculture.
4. Children to a greater extent have stopped going to work. This is the result of mass mobilisation and active role of vigilance committee members in the project villages.
5. Advocacy material (Bimonthly Newsletter, brochures and films) developed on CREDA's initiatives and successful approaches and disseminated.

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