How do we help?
| Simple but effective Having worked in this field for the last 6 years, we have learned that the living conditions of the children we support are normally not safe, healthy or stable enough for a child to live and study. For example, some of the children were beaten at home, some have no parents, whilst others have no permanent home. This is no fault of the family but symptomatic of the poverty that they face. Consequently, the children we support live in Little Gems Hostel where we provide care and education. In short, we create the conditions for children to enjoy childhood and to study for their future. Provide care and support: We want to bring stability and security to their lives so that they can do what normal children do and go to school. Our long term goal is to provide each child the opportunity to escape poverty and in doing so support their family and community. At present we help 14 girls. We would like to help many more children. Our hostel is not just a home but also a learning environment where we teach children so that they can catch up in their schooling. We provide an intensive literacy course for children before they begin school and we provide staff to assist with any problems they might have in their homework. Sending children to school Does this work? From our experience, we believe so-In 2004, Kalisha Sani was working full time in a stone quarry. She was just 9 years old. Her duties included collecting stone from the river, crushing it and loading it on to Lorries for processing. Her 8 hour work day would earn her roughly 18 Nepali Rupees (14 pence a day). She had not been to school but had enrolled in informal education classes run by the ILO for 2 months but her parents had withdrawn her because they felt that she had not learnt anything. So she returned to crushing stones. When we met her she could not read or write and looked underweight. She had cuts and bruises on her legs and feet which had formed into puss. She would often burst into tears when she would receive a knock on her feet and legs because her cuts had not healed properly. Five years on and now she is studying in class 7 at school. She regularly tops her class in her studies and examinations. Her achievements are remarkable in that most children take 8 years of study to achieve what she has done in 3. Not only can she now read, but she knows about maths, science, health and she has started to speak confidently in English. Her parents are proud of the fact that their daughter is getting a chance to study in school because they never believed Kalisha would be able to study because of a lack of money. |
