Share and share alike...Posted by: Manager1 in Untagged on Mar 14, 2008
Welcome to ICI's blog in advance of our conference the first week of April.
The blog is designed to provide a forum to discuss ideas, share resources and best practice and identify common interests before we meet in London. In addition to sharing your experiences, expertise and highlights from your e-library, we hope you will add your name to the who's who's in London section on the left. You might also want to participate in our poll -- when can we realistically eliminate child labour in cocoa?
Our first conference is dedicated to addressing the complex issues associated with child labour in agriculture. The ILO estimates that 132 million children work in agriculture around the world – in many cases out of sheer economic necessity. Founded in 2002, the International Cocoa Initiative (ICI) is dedicated to ending child and forced labour in cocoa-growing.
Over the course of the next two weeks, we 'd be happy to hear what you'd like to focus on in London or what you've been working on. Similarly, we'll share with you our ideas and experiences and give you a brief preview of our open space format.
The blog is designed to provide a forum to discuss ideas, share resources and best practice and identify common interests before we meet in London. In addition to sharing your experiences, expertise and highlights from your e-library, we hope you will add your name to the who's who's in London section on the left. You might also want to participate in our poll -- when can we realistically eliminate child labour in cocoa?
Our first conference is dedicated to addressing the complex issues associated with child labour in agriculture. The ILO estimates that 132 million children work in agriculture around the world – in many cases out of sheer economic necessity. Founded in 2002, the International Cocoa Initiative (ICI) is dedicated to ending child and forced labour in cocoa-growing.
Over the course of the next two weeks, we 'd be happy to hear what you'd like to focus on in London or what you've been working on. Similarly, we'll share with you our ideas and experiences and give you a brief preview of our open space format.
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Katherine Owen
said:
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‘EVERY CHILD IS SPECIAL’. Every child in cocoa growing communities has its own talents, its own potential waiting to be developed. If today children are denied the rights to be a child, to play, and to be educated, when will be their next chance to exert these rights? What will be the prospects for this next generation of uneducated children whose dreams were once to do better than their elders and to change the face of today's cocoa growing communities? The conference on sharing the lessons on the WFCL in the cocoa sector organised by ICI is timely for those who have been dealing with this issue for some times. What have we learned and what have we done that has proven to be a successful response to the elimination of the WFCL in the cocoa sector? What has not yet been addressed which would drive change in the long term? How can we better combine and coordinate our efforts to have a greater outreach and impact on the livelihood of cocoa farmers and future generations? Looking forward to very interesting discussions and thoughtful inputs for new directions |
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Sylvia Hinson-Ekong
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This really is a great initiative! CONGRATULATIONS ICI! This conference should be organized annually to provide a forum for sharing ideas in an open and friendly manner. WFCL in cocoa is a difficult and challenging subject. I hope by the end of the conference we would have discussed the more difficult issues like how farmers can earn enough money from cocoa to be able to engage labourers in the labour intensive processes so that farmers' children can concentrate on school; how can we ensure the development of safe equipment for the cultivation and processing of cocoa to minimize the hazards to farmers and their families; how can we ensure adequate numbers of well trained teachers in the cocoa areas for improving the education of farmers' children; how will we address the issue of aging farmers and the drift of the youth from the rural areas to the cities; how can we effectively find and rescue children who have been trafficked for work in the cocoa sector; how do we improve research methodologies to ensure that we get the real facts and present nothing but the facts? how do we ensure that remediation targets all the problems in the sector and not focus on a few aspects only? And how do we ensure that when child labour has been eliminated from the sector, the sector will remain child labour free for the rest of time? What are the best methods and processes to use to achieve our ultimate objective - to ensure that every child in the cocoa sector is given an opportunity for full development that will ensure he/she grows up into a responsible productive adult? I will certainly like to see this first conference address some of these issues. I look forward to seeing all the partners in this sector very soon! |
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Tony Dzidzinyo Kwesi Dogbe
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Since November, 2004, Participatory Development Associates (PDA), of which I am a Co-Director, has been working with ICI and a number of District-level NGOs in facilitating a community-driven, child-centred development process towards the elimination of the worst forms of child labour in cocoa production in three districts in Ghana. We started with a pilot in 24 communities and are now in 110 communities. We are in the process of working in another 30 communities in April this year. This should bring the total number of communities to 140. It has been a learning process for all of us involved. PDA is well known for participatory approaches to development, especially for engaging communities and in training facilitators. But in 2004, we were new to child labour related issues, including child trafficking. We were prepared to learn. After the training organised by ICI for its partners, PDA came to the conclusion that though there are many factors that account for the worst forms of child labour, attitude, resulting from cultural and traditional pratices was a major factor to deal with. It was for this reason that we decided to use the community-driven, child-centred development approach. Change in cultural and traditional practices have to be driven by the society who practice them. It cannot be imposed from above. We were proven right. As in most communities around the world, the rights of the child comes last. A child of course does not have a say in whether she or he wants to come to this world. That is the decision of the parents. Since that seems to be the case, right from birth, they are voiceless and powerless. No wonder they are the most vulnerable. And so it is in the cocoa growing communities we are working in. Surprise, surprise. While this may not be surprising when put within the context of the child being voiceless and powerless right from birth, in many ways, it is still surprising when put within the context of the 21st Century. In many households and communities in Ghana, the needs of the child comes last - often after those of the adults. This is even evident at the national level, where the two most critical factors in a child's life - nutrition and education- has not been a priority of the governments after the Nkrumah regime which made education truely free and compulsory, not only in words but in deeds. It is however assuring that the current government is beginning to take this up with the introduction of the "Capitation Grant" and the school feeding program in some selected schools around the country. From the dialogue and sensitisation process that ICI, PDA and the district level partners have engaged the communities in on the issue of the worst forms of child labour and on the need to cater for the child's needs, as their future, children report that their parents now take better care of them and meet some of their basic needs, including improved nutrition. Communities are initiating projects to improve on education. If the adults in a country - from household level all the way to the national level - would adopt a child-centred development where the rights (esp. nutrition and education) of the child, the future generation, come first, child labour and its worst forms, would be marginal if not eliminated. In today's globalised world, countries which are making progress are those who have put the child first. While there may be lapses in some of these countries in terms of children's rights, they have taken the first step of placing education first. These countries are recording literarcy rates of over 90% when in Ghana, we are still hovering around 50%/60%. I wish, therefore, to humbly submit that while we work to change the attitudes of parents at community level, this has to be linked to influencing governments to put resources where it matters most - the rights of the child. It is for this reason that in the scale-up phase of the program with ICI, we have budgeted for evidenced-based advocacy. While we also advocate for increase in producer prices, we have not made it our priority for the reason that if the Ghanaian society does not get its priority right (that of the child), increased income does not necessarily translate to improved standard of living for the child. Any improvement would be marginal. While there is also a correlation between the status of women and that of the child, we have focused on the child because the child in a female-headed household is still powerless and voiceless. I look forward to other views and perspectives through this medium and the conference next week in London. |
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Peter McAllister
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I am looking forward to this, the first international conference that ICI has organised. In the first four years of operation we have concentrated our efforts on better understanding the realities of child labouring cocoa and building relationships with a wide variety of great partners on the ground. While we are a long way from declaring success we and our partners have learned a lot and I believe are making a real difference through our work. One of the most notable areas is the level of engagement that has been seen from governments. It is ICI's contention that without this leadership we cannot make sustainable progress in eliminating child labour. This conference will give us a chance to explore what is now known about child labour and more importantly how to address the underlying causes. We aim to have this event be an open forum for sharing and learning so when we began planning this first conference -- we wanted to make sure we used a format that promoted learning. Given previous experience I believe the "open space technology" model will help us in this effort, it's also reflective of our philosophy and commitment to working in partnership to drive change. While the first day is a more traditional working group session on key themes we felt that to stimulate creative thinking about the challenges and opportunities ahead a variation on the open space approach would be ideal. For those of you who haven't experienced an agenda guided by open space before, it's ideally suited to complex issues where the people involved bring their knowledge and experience not only to the discussion but also in setting the agenda for discussion. It allows for issues and recommendations to evolve based on the dynamics of the participants rather than the agenda of the facilitators or conference organisers. See this link for more detail: http://www.openspaceworld.org/...tOpenSpace I and all the ICI team are looking forward to seeing you all and both sharing and learning during this event. |
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R.Venkat Reddy
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Dear Friends, I am glad to participate in the London conference. The issue of child labour in agriculture is not in our policy makers agenda. I hope to learn more from you all to lobby and advocacy stratagies. |
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