Empower Rural Women and Children - India
AVANI Child Labor Rescue and Residential Home
Women’s and Child Rights Campaign (WCRC)
WHAT THEY DO
AVANI
Anuradha’s Bhosale is a renowned grassroots women’s rights and anti-child labor activist based in the Kolhapur district, Maharashtra, India where more than 35,000 children are involved in daily labor for local industries. A former child-laborer herself at the age of six, she has spent the past 20 years fighting for the prevention of child exploitation, labor, trafficking, and female infanticide. As director of AVANI organization, she has facilitated the rescue of 341 child laborers, provided 5,604 migrant children the right to health care and education, organized the construction of schools inside the brickyards and established a residential home for migrant children. Click here for more information on AVANI and the construction of their new residential home.
Child Labor Rescue
In 1986, he Indian Government passed a law that stated employing child labor was against the law. In 2006 Juvenile Justice act was passed to protect the rights of children from all work occupations. Even though these laws address the heart of the problem, the laws are rarely implemented. AVANI’s primary focus is on the vulnerable industries of brickyard and sugarcane factories where migrant laborers are employed. Since 2001, AVANI started motivating brickyard families and the brickyard owners to stop sending their children to work. With their ongoing efforts to eradicate child laborers from brickyards, AVANI has been 95% successful in stopping child laborer with the region's brickyards.
Residential Home
In 2005, a group of migrant laborers requested that Anuradha create a special residential home for migrant children who were at risk of child labor. She accepted and helped create AVANI Residential Home, initially run out of a hut made from mud and cow dung lacking electricity or running water. It now cares for the wellbeing and education of 45 rescued migrant and child laborers. Current construction is underway for a new facility.
Brickyard Schools
AVANI now operates schools in the brickyards for migrant children between the ages of 3 - 6 as the Indian government does not recognize the right to education for this age group. As a result, many of them are put t work in the brickyards. Every year 1100 migrant children attend the AVANI facilitate schools in the brickyards.
Women and Child Rights Campaign
From the beginning, Anuradha recognized that child-labor was a cyclical phenomena oftentimes beginning with women in vulnerable positions. Empowering, educating and uniting disadvantaged women to build sustainable futures in a male dominated society has therefore become the backbone of her anti child-labor work and mission. Searching for long-term solutions to the root of the issues surrounding child labor, she founded the Women and Child Rights Campaign (WCRC), devoted to educating and empowering widowed, divorced and abandoned women--those at the greatest risk of sending their children into the work force out of necessity. Working at the grassroots level organizing meetings in rural villages, Anuradha drives change by providing marginalized rural women and children access to information regarding their legal civil rights. She motivates them to unite, do for themselves, pursue education and act on their own issues. In 2011, 53,000 vulnerable women received their pensions due to WCRC protests.
Women's Shelter
WCRC runs a counseling center where exploited women are given advice and legal help free of charge. After seeking legal counseling and reporting their abuses to the police, unfortunately, many women either not in proper physical condition or are too afraid to return back to their homes. Considering their needs for a safe place to stay, WCRC is currently developing a Women's Shelter. They have successfully fought the government for access to a building to do so, and are now raising funds for the operational costs to run the shelter.
Women’s and Child Rights Campaign (WCRC)
WHAT THEY DO
AVANI
Anuradha’s Bhosale is a renowned grassroots women’s rights and anti-child labor activist based in the Kolhapur district, Maharashtra, India where more than 35,000 children are involved in daily labor for local industries. A former child-laborer herself at the age of six, she has spent the past 20 years fighting for the prevention of child exploitation, labor, trafficking, and female infanticide. As director of AVANI organization, she has facilitated the rescue of 341 child laborers, provided 5,604 migrant children the right to health care and education, organized the construction of schools inside the brickyards and established a residential home for migrant children. Click here for more information on AVANI and the construction of their new residential home.
Child Labor Rescue
In 1986, he Indian Government passed a law that stated employing child labor was against the law. In 2006 Juvenile Justice act was passed to protect the rights of children from all work occupations. Even though these laws address the heart of the problem, the laws are rarely implemented. AVANI’s primary focus is on the vulnerable industries of brickyard and sugarcane factories where migrant laborers are employed. Since 2001, AVANI started motivating brickyard families and the brickyard owners to stop sending their children to work. With their ongoing efforts to eradicate child laborers from brickyards, AVANI has been 95% successful in stopping child laborer with the region's brickyards.
Residential Home
In 2005, a group of migrant laborers requested that Anuradha create a special residential home for migrant children who were at risk of child labor. She accepted and helped create AVANI Residential Home, initially run out of a hut made from mud and cow dung lacking electricity or running water. It now cares for the wellbeing and education of 45 rescued migrant and child laborers. Current construction is underway for a new facility.
Brickyard Schools
AVANI now operates schools in the brickyards for migrant children between the ages of 3 - 6 as the Indian government does not recognize the right to education for this age group. As a result, many of them are put t work in the brickyards. Every year 1100 migrant children attend the AVANI facilitate schools in the brickyards.
Women and Child Rights Campaign
From the beginning, Anuradha recognized that child-labor was a cyclical phenomena oftentimes beginning with women in vulnerable positions. Empowering, educating and uniting disadvantaged women to build sustainable futures in a male dominated society has therefore become the backbone of her anti child-labor work and mission. Searching for long-term solutions to the root of the issues surrounding child labor, she founded the Women and Child Rights Campaign (WCRC), devoted to educating and empowering widowed, divorced and abandoned women--those at the greatest risk of sending their children into the work force out of necessity. Working at the grassroots level organizing meetings in rural villages, Anuradha drives change by providing marginalized rural women and children access to information regarding their legal civil rights. She motivates them to unite, do for themselves, pursue education and act on their own issues. In 2011, 53,000 vulnerable women received their pensions due to WCRC protests.
Women's Shelter
WCRC runs a counseling center where exploited women are given advice and legal help free of charge. After seeking legal counseling and reporting their abuses to the police, unfortunately, many women either not in proper physical condition or are too afraid to return back to their homes. Considering their needs for a safe place to stay, WCRC is currently developing a Women's Shelter. They have successfully fought the government for access to a building to do so, and are now raising funds for the operational costs to run the shelter.
In Partnership
In 2009, GoPhilanthropic began supporting the daily needs of the children at the AVANI residential Home. As the partnership deepened and we learned more about founder Anuradha Bhosale's work and the complexities of child labor, we began funding child labor rescues and providing support to makeshift classrooms in the brickyards. Believing that the empowerment of women represents the backbone of so many social issues, With the support of GoPhilanthropic, in 2010 WCRC became an established NGO and since then, we have be actively involved in organizational development, fundraising events and their overall movement towards becoming self-reliant.
GOALS & OBJECTIVES
GoPhilanthropic's support includes:
GoPhilanthropic's support includes:
- Funding for AVANI's new residential home construction project
- Active involvement in planning and organizational development for WCRC
- Funding for running costs, including utilities, supplies and general support for WCRC's activities
- Funding for the new Women's Shelter