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Schools instead of fields
Schools instead of fields – collaboration with the Naandi Foundation
Every day on her way to school, Chandra Kalar passes the fields in which now only adults work. |  |
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Bayer CropScience has a strict ban on child labor
Monitoring in the fields is used to verify implementation of the “no child labor” policy of Bayer CropScience in practice. Yet this can only achieve so much to ensure a long-term solution to the problem. It is important to change behavior that is often deep-rooted in longstanding tradition. The central messages of Bayer CropScience’s activities in this regard are:
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| | Agriculture can also be cost-effective without the use of children |
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| | Education is the key to a better future for children |
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One project in the “Learning for Life” initiative is the cooperation with India’s Naandi Foundation, which has been in place since April 2005. This non-governmental organization, set up in 1998, works with over 2,000 state-run schools in India. It has good contacts with school authorities and the private sector and places great emphasis on comprehensive involvement by local communities in implementing the education concept.
| The start of collaboration with the Naandi Foundation: From the outside, the Creative Learning Centers appear rather modest - but for the children they are a place that offers them great opportunities. Here they receive preparation to attend a state school. |
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The start of collaboration with Naandi in 2005 was marked by setting up “Creative Learning Centers” (bridge schools) in a total of 19 villages in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, where Bayer CropScience produces cotton seeds. The schools provided special courses to help children from rural families who have never attended school or who had to break off their schooling integrate into state-run schools. However, as child labor in cotton seed production areas has fallen heavily in the meantime, only one Creative Learning Center is still in operation today.
Collaboration with the Naandi Foundation needed to be adapted accordingly. Today, Bayer CropScience supports 29 “Early Child Education Centers” and 23 “Academic Learning Centers” in the project villages.
Early Child Education Centers are daycare centers where pre-school age children are supervised. This enables older siblings to attend school whose job would otherwise be to supervise the younger ones.
The Academic Learning Centers are housed in state-run schools and offer remedial education outside official school hours. This also enables weaker students to follow classes and further encourages them to attend school.
The elements of the collaboration between Bayer CropScience and Naandi: Various features are combined and ultimately ensure that the concept of “education is the key to a better future” is firmly established in people’s minds. | |
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A key factor in the success of all these projects is involvement of the population in rural communities (community mobilization). This can bring about a change in people’s attitudes toward attending school. The idea that “education is the key to a better future” is communicated, for example, in monthly local meetings, street theater sketches and poster campaigns.
Since the start of the project in April 2005, 1,402 children have been reintegrated into the school system as a result of the collaboration with Naandi.
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[ last update: Friday, June 11, 2010 ]
