Fresh Start Learning
Programme for children sorting waste
SYLHET PILOT PROGRAMME
In Bangladesh’s urban areas there are around 400,000 people, mostly women and children, who survive by collecting, storing and selling solid waste materials.
Providing an education and a future
This pilot project will bring basic education to 50 children working as waste collectors. Children will be taught literacy, numeracy and life skills by specialist community teachers 3 times a week in education centres close to their workplace. At the same time their families will be supported out of poverty enabling the children to enrol in school or vocational training instead of going to work.
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Challenge
In Bangladesh’s urban areas there are around 400,000 people, mostly women and children, who survive by collecting, storing and selling solid waste materials. They work with their bare hands sorting material for recycling – paper, plastic, metal and glass – and selling what they find to recycling factories. Childhood days are spent in the worst kind of labour where a range of illnesses – typhoid, diarrhea, dysentery, tuberculosis, hepatitis, are common.
Solution
This project provides numeracy, literacy and life skills sessions with specialist teachers at learning centres near waste dumping hot spots. Fieldworkers will liaise with their parents and encourage children to attend classes 3 times a week. Many of the children are malnourished and have illnesses and injuries, so we will also provide nutritious food and healthcare. The ultimate goal is to enrol the children into school or vocational training whilst helping parents generate a sustainable income.
Long-Term Impact
The children’s literacy, numeracy and life skills will be tested at the outset and again at the end of a year. Similarly, the economic, health and well being of the whole family will be assessed at the beginning and reviewed again at the end of the project. It is anticipated that the improvements will be life-changing for adults and children alike, allowing families to be lifted out of extreme poverty and children to attend school and vocational training.
We have chosen to align our vision for our Waste Collection programme with the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Not only do these goals offer a comprehensive guide to solving the challenges facing our planet, but they act as a focal point for all of us to rally together to create a more equitable world.
See below which goals our programme is working towards.
Our working children programmes
We reach and teach the most vulnerable and excluded working children forced into hazardous domestic labour. Our programmes below empower these young girls and their families through access to education, tailored vocational training, and livelihood support - offering them real alternatives to exploitation. By removing financial and social barriers, our programmes pave the way for long-term learning, dignity, and opportunity.
Doorstep Learning
Although not officially recognised as being ‘hazardous’, domestic work presents many dangers for working children both from the labour they are asked to do and the incidence of sexual and physical assault.
Family Futures
Poverty drives families to send their children to work rather than school. Our team works with families of the children in our education programmes to help them create income through self-employment and referring them to other agencies for support.
Historical programmes
The programmes below are no longer active. Initiated in 2013, these programmes aimed to help boys working in hazardous occupations. Despite their popularity, the number of boys progressing out of child labour was disappointing. Given limited resources, the Trustees have decided to close these programmes in February 2024 and focus on our Doorstep Learning and Family Futures programmes which continue to have great success and progression rate.
Waste Pickers
This pilot project will bring basic education to 50 children working as waste collectors in Sylhet. Children will be taught literacy, numeracy and life skills by specialist community teachers three times a week in education centres close to their workplace.
Hazardous Work
Following a baseline study that revealed that 3,000 children are employed in hazardous jobs in the city of Sylhet, we initiated our pioneering education programme with children doing hazardous work in workshops and small businesses in Sylhet.
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Education can change lives.