I also visited a non-formal school that ChildFund supports in a slum community outside of Yangon. This is what I learned about the children who attend the school, and my thoughts on what can be done to help them.
Child labour deprives children of their childhood
All of the children who attend the school have to work, forced by poverty to contribute to their household income from a young age.
It’s very upsetting to see kids having to live this way, but it was tremendous to see them in class, enjoying the chance to be a child again for a time. Every child needs that.
ChildFund would like to thank the Australian Government for its support of this work through the Australian NGO Cooperation Program (ANCP).
Education is one of our strongest tools to end child poverty. Meet Ma Nwe, a former child labourer who is now on the road to success, receiving the education she deserves.
Below we explain Ma Nwe’s experiences as a child labourer and how education has helped her learn the skills to follow her dreams.
From child labourer to dressmaker
Ma Nwe has a big smile as she admires her new sewing machine. It’s a fine-looking Singer with a shiny gold and black body.
For the 20-year-old dressmaking student (pictured above) the machine represents a new beginning. For the first time in a long time the future looks good. Really good.
A new life, and a new home for her mum and sisters, Ma Nwe imagines. And, one day, a tailor shop for herself.
How different things are now, compared to just a few months ago when she was working seven days a week at a manufacturing factory, checking the quality of drinking flasks, day in, day out.
It had been her job for the past seven years, since she was 13 years old.
Leaving school to earn an income
At the age of nine, Ma Nwe dropped out of school to help look after her two younger sisters so her parents could go to work. When their father died she was forced to go to work to make up for the family’s loss of income.
She worked 70-hour weeks, earning an equivalent of about US$60, at the manufacturing factory, and only had one day off a month. All her earnings went to her mother to keep the family afloat.
“If I continued working there, I think nothing would have changed in my life because my earnings were just spent on food,” Ma Nwe says.
