Send 15 children from rag picking community to school

The child labor situation is getting worse in rag picking community of Visakhapatnam because of the closed schools and poverty. In the rag-picking community, men go for rag-picking while women mostly go for selling broomsticks or collect hair from households in exchange for fancy items. The rag Pickers were able to work only for 4 months in the last 1 year because of the COVI19 restrictions. While they are struggling to meet basic needs, the second wave of COVID19 has hit them hard. Many people have to borrow a large amount of money for the treatment of a family member. The high debts and less income are forcing the children of the families into work. 

Many boys of 10-12 years are accompanying their parents for rag picking. While young girls are accompanying their mothers for work. While a year back some of these children were either going to school or coming to the child labor school in preparation for joining at school. Rag picking is classified as a hazardous activity for children below 14 years, under Indian law. Imagine a child has to walk long distances, putting the hands and searching for plastic in hazardous and filthy waste. 

Kidpower India is running Hope and LG Bridge Schools in the slums of Visakhapatnam with the aim of preventing child labor. Children who go to work or stay at home without working are motivated to join the bridge schools. Most of the parents of the children are rag-pickers. The Children are taught alphabets in Telugu, English, numbers, numbers in words, basic clean habits, etc. The syllabus consists of topics from Kindergarten to Grade 2 and prepares the child to join in regular school.

After completion of the bridge school, the children will be joined into government or private schools. Because of the COVID19 pandemic, the children will fail to make this transition from bridge school to regular school. They will end up joining their parents at work. Though children going to rag-picking is hazardous and is banned by the government. It is difficult to prevent because the children work with their parents. Half of the income, the child gives to the parent, and the remaining the child is allowed to spend on his own. By providing scholarships Kidpower aims to send the children who study well to low-cost private schools and prevent them from becoming rag pickers. 

Scholarships for poor deserving students are a sound investment for the future generation. The children will continue their education and have a better future. They will not drop out of school and become child labor. James Tootely in his book, "The beautiful Tree‟ prescribes a similar approach to educate the poor children and calls it "targeted vouchers for the poorest. Studies from Hyderabad and Delhi, show that children's learning is also better in low-cost private schools. Our own experience also indicates this is an effective method for ensuring children stay in school and get a better education. In the last few years, we are able to successfully enroll more than 100 children in various government and private schools. 

Because of the COVID19 pandemic, the families are struggling to meet the basic needs of the families because of the COVID19. Most of the families will not be able to support the children's education. Also, the schools are closed which made the children easily vulnerable to be convinced to join their parents. By providing scholarships to low-cost private schools we can ensure that the child completed his education and does not become a rag picker.