Project JYOTISHKA initiated

As part of our strategy to reach out to the most underprivileged children of the country we have started this month a new intervention called JYOTISHKA. Under this project children living in the Brick Kilns will be provided bridging facilities and then steps would be taken to mainstream them in the schools of their respective villages (sending areas). Jyotishka will be implemented in Amardaha Panchayat of Howrah district of West Bengal in collaboration with a local NGO KPCWA (Khardaha Public Cultural and Welfare Association).

The first formal meeting with the Brick Kiln owners and managers. Fortunately, we have got a very good response from the kiln owners. Right now we are trying to organize a bigger meeting with the labour contractors so that we can do a perfect mapping of the sending areas.

The intervention would require coordination with the government and non government authorities of the sending areas so that after 1st year of bridging right in the brick field the children are to be mainstreamed in their respective villages. Initial discussion reveals that the children in 4 Amardaha Brick Kilns come from tribal areas of 3 districts of Jharkhand – Chaibasa, Sarai Kela and Gumla. We also have to identify teachers from these districts for two basic reasons – a) the children here need to be taught in Hindi and b) the teachers must go back with the children after the next Brick Kiln season and ensure that the children are enrolled in the local schools.

Every year the poor from Orissa , West Bengal, Jharkhand and Bihar migrate to work in the brick kilns of Howrah District. These labourers migrate in semi-bonded conditions due to acute shortage of sustainable livelihood options in their native places. Moneylenders and contractors further compound the socio-economic condition of these labourers because of exploitative practices. Middlemen or labour contractors emerged as a set of exploiters. Their job is simple: They coax the poor people and farmers of these poorest areas of the country into migrating for work to other states where the rich industrialists, brick-kiln owners or road contractors savour the cheap but skilled labour. These labourers do not qualify as migrants under the Inter-State Migrant Workmen’s (Regulation of Employment & Conditions of Service) Act of 1979, since they migrate on their own volition.

Makeshift huts constructed in the kilns are so small that one has to crawl to enter these. Needless to say, basic sanitation is absent. The worst affected are the children, for whom there is neither any amusement nor any form of recreation. They too help their parents in making bricks.

Many children like this are born in the Brick Kilns every year. Mothers do not waste more than 3 days after giving birth to the children – they go back to their work immediately after. Most of these children are severely malnourished.

Play time for the Brick Kiln children – on the outset they look happy – the reality is very different

With the family come the children below 14 years of age.

The children are bonus to the contractors and brick kiln owners as: a) the children are engaged in work and not paid or partly paid and b) the children help their parents to meet the daily targets.

Seeta and Geeta – twin sisters in one of the 4 Brick Kilns of Amardaha. They said they would be most interested in going to school rather than living here.

The main strategies of this proposed intervention would be:

• Collaboration with contractors and kiln owners to make them active stakeholders of the intervention.
• Coordination between sending and receiving areas.
• Establishment of NGO network between sending and receiving areas.
• Educational (mainly bridging) facilities in different languages (as per the language of the child) right inside the brick kiln.
• Ensuring re-admission and certification though coordination with schools of sending areas.
• Taking required measures to ensure reduction in migration of children in the coming years.