In the slum colony where Victory Home is located, children, especially girls, are routinely pulled out of school at about the age of ten and made to tend little shops, help at home, join construction crews, or do fieldwork.
For several years, our ministry, India Christian Ministries, has been reaching out to children at risk of dropping out of school. We operate several "Hope Child Development Centers" where we identify fifty of the poorest children in a village or slum (kids from any religion or caste group) and provide a hot evening meal, free tutoring and help with homework. We run one of these centers at Victory Home (which is located in a slum colony) one at Angel Home (very poor village), and through eight other village churches.
Wanna meet a child laborer?
Vennela ("vanilla") seems to be about the age of my oldest daughter Simona (13 today!). She dropped out of school in the fifth grade and hasn't gone back since.Wanna know who she works for? Sarah's Covenant Homes, Victory Home. Seriously. :( But not for long...
I came home with the new kids in early December, and Vennela was among several caregiver applicants. Right away I said, "Oh, man, she has to go to school. She can't work here." (Legal working age is 15, I believe.) They said her mother was coming to join us as a caregiver, and so I said, "Alright, if her mom's coming, she can stay, but she has to go to school." Sometimes caregivers bring along a child or two, and they just live here with their moms.
Well, it's been a month, and her mom hasn't shown up. What do you do? The mom refuses to come and get her, isn't joining us for work... I took the step of sending Vennela to a local private school to get her registered, but when she talked to her mom on the phone, her mom apparently freaked and refused to let her enroll. Their family needs the income, and if we won't hire Vennela, she'll find someone who will. Vennela's not at all excited, either, about the prospect of returning to school after several years out. I gave Vennela an ultimatum--attend school or leave--but who's going to enforce that? How will we make her leave? I guess we just proceed with sending her to school, and if the mom comes to take her home, she does, which she undoubtedly will when she realizes Vennela won't draw a full-time salary. And then Vennela will end up working in someone's home, or on a construction crew somewhere...until she can be married off--in two or three years, most likely. I suppose we could call the police, but it seems harsh to involve the police in a non-abusive situation when we don't know whether the outcome of that would be better or worse for Vennela than just letting her family make the decision they feel is best for her. She is their daughter, after all, not mine.
What makes it even tougher is that Vennela's a fabulous ayah. She's active, energetic, she PLAYS with and engages the children, she's loving to even the most challenged kids, she respects me and Theresa, she's highly teachable... She's everything I want in a caregiver. I wish we had twenty of her. I wish somehow we could keep her around. She could go to school and then just play with and engage the children in the evenings. I see now why employers want to hire children and even prefer them to adults.
It's interesting to experience all of this from this angle.
9 comments:
Dear Sarah,
This is just not right :( Is there any chance of talking to her mum? Might not help much but... I found that people react better to people of their own kin, who speak their language... Maybe you could ask some of the ladies in your house for assistance? I can't tell whether my idea is possible to carry out at all but maybe? Is there no way of her working and studying? You wrote it is illegal to employ her, so that's out of question I guess. Or have her go to school with a promise you'll hire her when she's 15 :)
What a difficult situation!
Is it legal to employ her part time? I would do what is suggested above and make some sort of deal with her. For example:
Go to school for as long as possible and work part time and after that you can be employed full time. If you stay in school until you are 18 then you can have a higher paid job with more responsibilities.
Asking one of the other ayahs to talk to her mum sounds like a really good idea too. Is there anyone there who has experience of what a good education can bring?
If that doesn't work, then all you can do is try and make sure she attends one of the food programs you run and has at least a little education there.
Would it be possible to get a sponser for her? Maybe in the ammount that she is now getting paid? Then she could live at the home and go to school and keep her mom happy, maybe?
Is there way way you could pay her the full wage but also get her into school? Or would that cause problems with other staff members? If you get the home registered as a school could she be some kind of pupil/assistant, receiving an education whilst working?
Failing that, can you make it absolutely clear to her that you'll be delighted to employ her once she is the right age so that she has you as a good safe alternative in a year or so?
Tia
This is a sticky situation, isn't it? The thing is, if she works for you, you know she is in a safe situation.
Us Americans tend to have very cut and dried ideas about these kinds of things because of our culture, but things are different in India. I will pray that you know the right decision to make for Vennela.
I can't help but feel a kinship with her as Kira's given Indian name (and now her middle name) is Vanila. When I saw you give the pronounciation for Vennela, I had to wonder if they didn't spell her name wrong when she arrived at the orphanage.
Sarah If you would decide to have her sponsored I would be willing to help. I don't know how the other ayahs would feel, but you have been kind to them in many ways.
Laura
Hmm... difficult situation and an interesting post.
I had no idea you guys have development centers as well- so cool! When I eventually do this kind fo work full time (I hope.. not sure in which country yet) I would love to run a community center, so look forward to hearing more about this!
There are several like Vennela. We've been approached by several little V. Colony girls wanting to work for us as ayahs. At least one girl that we've turned down is doing other work, tending a tiny shop, and one is in school and comes to our development center for tutoring & dinner. The development centers (HCDCs) are really there as a support to the families--if the families see or can be made to see the value of an education for their children, then it works well. But if the family is dead-set on pulling out their daughters (and they give so many reasons for this besides just finances), there's not much we can do about it.
Most of our SCH children are not going anywhere, so when a person sponsors one of them, they can follow the child for life, but with a girl like Vennela, I can't guarantee she'll be here next week, even if I do pay her mother the equivalent of a full salary and call it a sponsorship. They may just be offended that I crossed them on the schooling issue.
Pray for Vennela and so many others like her in our state. Ultimately I've learned that in some situations, there is not a whole lot I can do and I can't carry that burden for her when I have no authority in her life to be able to change anything. I'll let you know how it plays out this month.
So sorry to say that when Vennela's mom saw that we were taking steps to put her into school, she immediately came and took her home. Vennela left while I was in Hyderabad picking up a team. Thanks so much for caring about her.
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