{"id":1477,"date":"2012-02-12T15:03:00","date_gmt":"2012-02-12T15:03:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost:8888\/gophil\/2012\/02\/12\/hope-in-the-brickyards\/"},"modified":"2019-05-03T20:57:23","modified_gmt":"2019-05-03T20:57:23","slug":"hope-in-the-brickyards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gophilanthropic.org\/hope-in-the-brickyards\/","title":{"rendered":"Hope in the Brickyards"},"content":{"rendered":"
GoPhilanthropic’s Lydia Dean and donor Heather Kilian visit the Brickyards of Kolhapur, India where thousands are trapped in a cycle of bonded labor. \u00a0Partnering with AVANI and WCRC (Women’s and Child Rights Campaign), they see the powerful result of GoPhilanthropic’s donations at work. \u00a0<\/b><\/i><\/p>\n
Two hundred kilometers south of Mumbai sits the working city of Kolhapur, far off any tourist track and home to miles of brickyards and sugarcane plantations. \u00a0 For 5 months out of the year migrant populations make their way to Kolhapur where they work grueling shifts in the brickyards, carrying tons of weight on their heads under the burning sun. \u00a0Men earn just over a dollar a day and women .70 cents. Since these wages are not sufficient enough to live off of during the rest of the year, the brickyard owners pay their migrants workers enough for the remainder of the year. \u00a0While this may seem like a decent arrangement, it’s a way of trapping them in a cycle of debt they will never be free of. \u00a0Worse yet, many children of these migrant families are also expected to work in the yards. \u00a0\u00a0In this region alone, a shocking 35,000 children are employed by local industries.<\/p>\n