Stichting Veldwerk at Nepal

Secretariaat: Stichting Veldwerk Postbus 163 1850 AD Heiloo The Netherlands

Tel:+31 (0)72-5339585 veldwerk@gmail.com IBAN nr. NL51ABNA0543703266 Attn. Stichting Veldwerk, p/a Egmond binnen Bank: ABN-Amro 543703266

A project that rocks!

Although it is forbidden by law, child labour is still performed on a daily base in Nepal. About 2,6 million children are exposed to heavy labour, of which a million does not even receive any payment for this. Considering that these are only the official registrated numbers, many organizations state that the real number of working children is most likely to be much higher. For example when all children are included those has to help the families in the fields or are performing household duties, leaving them no time to go to school.


Being a stone quarry is considered to be one of the most heavy and dangerous forms of child labour. Besides the fact that the child has to make long hours every day, crushing stones to little pieces, the dust and splinters cause serious injuries to the lungs and eyes. This dreadful work causes physical and mental damage on the long term. From aching muscles to disfigured bones and infections. About 32.000 children are working as stone quarries, along the river sides. Almost 70% of these children works for 9 to 10 hours a day, 90% is making less than 70 eurocent per day and 32% of the children is younger than 11 years.
The children that are working (of which 80% are girls) are coming into a downwards circuit of poverty, passing it onto the next generation. Their lack of education often forces them to spend the rest of their lives performing this type of labour. Furthermore, in order to survive, they are most likely to employ their children as well, crushing stones. This situation calls for intervention!




We would like to be part of this intervention, but it has to have sustainable results. From one side do we want to remove the children as fast as possible from their working places, but from the other side do we have to ensure not to give a fatal blow to the shaky local economies and the income of the families of those children. In order to accomplish this, we have joined forces with a local Ngo, Concern-Nepal, who has been working with this kind of children for years already. Together we will develop classes on the working places that create awareness amongst the children and their parents about their situation and the consequences, and provide them non-formal education so that they can become on a similar level of formal education and start attending regular school. To give the project a broad scope, we decided to set up different types of non-formal education, from day-care centres for the little children to vocational training for the older children.




In the coming three years, SVN wants, together with Concern-Nepal, to remove phase wise 300 children from their working places and provide them access to education facilities. This will happen in cooperation with the local community, the parents of the children and the employers of the stone quarry working places. Furthermore, the situation of these children has to be altered at the roots; their families, they will be supported through, amongst others, micro credits or trainings. Also, the communities will be encouraged to set up comities that will look after the interests of poor people in that area. Finally the children will be able to store their money in a safe place while they are still working through opening a development bank in the project area.




Last week, the project known as the Kavre-Penauty project, is signed by our sponsors in The Netherlands and hopefully it will not take long before we will see the first results of this promising initiative. For the time being, 300 children are included in the project, but hopefully this project will function as a blueprint and encourage more sponsors to enable us increasing this number. The project was funded by the Mahaamata foundation, the Baalak foundation and Impulsis. But with your help we can make more children to swap their hammer for a pen.

Namasté, with respect

René Veldt, Stichting Veldwerk Nepal
Actions speak louder than words

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p/a Egmond Binnen
Bank: ABN-Amro 543703266
IBAN nr.; NL51ABNA0543703266
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