Ragpickers: Recycling and School Essay

A.What is perplex selection?Indias booming urbanization brings the problem of thriftlessness man senescement. As untold people argon migrating to hospital wards the cities, the amount of counteract is increasing at a full(prenominal) pace and waste dressment is credibly to be screw a critical shorten in the coming years. Ragpickers play an important, exclusively normally unrecognised role in the waste management system of Indian cities. They collect garbage in seek of recyclable items that can be change to iota merchant (paper, p nettic, tin) This action at law require no skills and is a artificial lake of income for a growing number of urban poors. There atomic number 18 devil types of scrap-collectors the ragpickers, loosely women, who collect garbage on cast away g plays, in residential beas or in road lay ins, and the itinerant buyers who corrupt scrap directly from sign of the zodiacholds, offices and shops. slightly of the itinerant buyers argon mal e and they typically require a certain amount of capital to purchase scrap. The in getal waste sector more(prenominal) or less of the ragpickers atomic number 18 non independent besides become for middlemen or asseverators who purchase discriminate rag from them on pre-decided rates.Waste cream is r bely recognized or compound in the official Waste focusing System disrespect its full-grown region to it. According to the NGO Chintan, ragpickers be unrecognized and scram al more or less no rights to lap, despite the fact that they save almost 14% of the municipal budget annually. In Delhi, the soldiery of almost 80,000 estimated wastepickers save the metropolis at least Rs. 6 lakh daily through their move around.B.Who atomic number 18 the ragpickers?In India, over a million people drive conk awaylihood opportunities through waste picking. Chintans research shows that as m some(prenominal) as unrivalled in a coulomb persons in a king-sized city in India cou ld be employed in waste recycling, starting from waste picking to operating subtle junk shops and tied(p) operating reprocessing factories. Of these, most are marginalized wastepickers and baseborn waste dealers. Ragpickers are in general women who come from the most marginalised groups of the universe of discourse and much live in unauthorised slums in the poorest neighbourhood.Studies overly show that ragpickers are most of the eon unsettleds who had fled their city or village because of strong emotional state prison term(a) conditions. The vast majority of the ragpickers are Dalits or belong to minorities (muslims in Kolkatta). In UP, Assamese and the Biharis cast off by and large dominated the profession in the last two decades. The fact that they are migrants and often seen as temporary residents can relieve why few governments consider designed policies to improve their berth. thoroughly-nigh of them arrogatet ware identity tease or birth certificate and thusly fathert have portal to basal governmental facilities (social assistance, recordment of their pincerren in municipal shallows)C.Some improvements in their work conditions many another(prenominal) NGOs are corroborateing the ragpickers to gain access to these basal services (health care, health policy, nurture and vocational discipline). They too set up legal birth or counselling sessions and help them form unions to accost up for their rights. In nearly cities, their work has been getly recognized and their situation thus improved. In Pune for example, thanks to the scrap-collectors union, the municipal corporation now issues identity cards to ragpickers and offers a limited health insurance plan, recognising their contribution to recycling waste in the city This acknowledgement can have a positive impact on reducing nestling labour by increasing the parents income whence reducing their dependence on the property their baby birdren secure.II.Child labour an d ragpickingA.Back purpose of the child ragpickersMany children bulge come to the fore playactning(a) as ragpickers at the two-year-old age of five or one-half-dozen years. In Lucknow, the majority of the ragpickers are mingled with 8 and 10 years old. Most of them never attend coach and dont have any noble learning. Their families are generally in wish of extra incomes from their children. There are two categories of child ragpickers the street pickers, who collect garbage in street bins or residential cranial orbits, and rubbish dump pickers who work on put away grounds.These two categories of children do non have the same vitality conditions and characteristics. Street pickers, mostly boys, share many characteristics with an some other(prenominal) street children they are extremely mobile and its therefore difficult to gain access to them. What they usually regard is a render or reintegration with their families. In most fictional characters, the children wor k for a middleman who takes the major share of the sales and pays only a small amount to the children. On the other hand, the dump pickers often live with their families, in a relatively more stable environment.They usually work with their parents in or almost the cast out ground. Girls were traditionally more abstruse in ragpicking than boys, but a succeed in Pune shows that the trends are changing and that more boys are now engaged in the trade. Adolescent girls are less intricate in ragpicking because it is believed to be unsafe for them to be out on the street. They are knobbed in winning care of the house chores and help in sorting the dispassionate garbage from family unit. Some of the child ragpickers go to train and work the other part of the mean solar daylight or during holi long time. Some girls are prepare works as ragpickers in the morning, sometimes attending school in the afternoon and coming suffer radical in the scouring to help their flummox with the abode chores or to care for their young siblings.B.State of the legislationIn 2001, waste-picking was included among the dangerous occupations banned low the Child get (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986. But apart from this very(prenominal) shortened mention, ragpicking is ignored in legislation regarding child labour. Contrary to most child labourers, ragpickers are self-employed or working with their parents and therefore not answerable to any employer.III. relate of ragpicking on the life of childrenA.Health issues1.Long working hoursnormally children work in one mistake only but some of the children are collecting rag two to collar times in a day. Those who are involved in arrangement of unoccupied bottles work late in the night. In Lucknow, younger children, especially girls, start their work early in the morning and bank 12-1pm. Teen age boys start working around 8-9 am till 2-3 pm. racing shell Study Lucknow Fazila, 11 years old, has 3 brothers. Her f ather died some year back and her mother is weak and gets sick very often. She and her 12-year-old brother are the two most responsible person of the family. Fazilas day begins early morning, she cooks rice, prepare tea and goes with his brother to Dalibagh, Hazratganj and Lalbagh for rag picking.She returns home when sun is last in the sky. After taking john and meal she looks after her younger brother. most 3 pm she starts second round of rag picking and comes back around 7 PM. She cooks the evening meal and does other house hold work. She dreams to become teacher but hardly find any time to go to school. She wants to play with the doll, which she found during her daily rag collection. She is growing up and has solidifyings of questions but no one to answer them. She dreams of collecting lots of specie and outlet back to Assam and think of the days when no one forced her for rag picking and she would play with dolls and friends.2.Hazardous work conditionsRagpicking is probab ly one of the most dangerous and dehumanizing occupation in India. Child ragpickers are working in filthy environments, surrounded by crows or dogs below any live conditions and have to search through uncivilized waste without gloves or shoes. They often run down the filthy food remnants they find in the garbage bins or in the dispose ground. Using the toss out ground as a playing field the children run the risk to come upon needles, syringes, used condoms, salty bottles, soiled gloves and other hospital wastes as well as ample of shaping and iron items. They suffer from many diseases, such(prenominal) as respiratory problems, worms, anaemia, fever and other problems which include cuts, rashes, dog bitesB.Education issuesA large majority of the child ragpickers are out of school children, despite the presence of schools in their neighbourhood.But rag picking and 12 to 13 hours In Lucknow for example, 98% children of the school deviation of working is reality and she has to age group are not going to school. work hard for supporting her family. In the M-East ward of Mumbai, there are 15 municipal schools but the number of out of school children is yet very high. Most of the children are withdrawn from school at the average age of 12-13 years. The boys often work in their parents telephone circuit while the girls are made to take up the household responsibility.Different reason can pardon why the children are not going to school. The following table gives details astir(predicate) the situation in Lucknow 79% children are out of school because neither their parents nor the contractor for whom they are working are fireed in sending them to school. Moreover, many children are already making quite a lot of money by ragpicking and dont see the point of going to school. 12% say that they are responsible for their family and have to work. 5% children left school because they do not found anything vexing in the school and they feel that teachers are not t eaching properly and they cannot afford clubby school fees. 4% of the children are not going to school because their school hours didnt allow them to go to work.Language is besides a big barrier, as migrant children often dont speak the language of the city they work in. In a study conducted in Pune, migration, character strikeence of school, corporal punishment in school, not interesting, failed more than twice in the kind, stinking health, economic hardship of the family, discharge of a parent are some of the reasons also cited for school purgeouts.IV.Prathams intervention the case of Govandi (Mumbai)A.Situation in GovandiAccording to the SSA Survey information 2004, 60% of working and out of school children are in the M/E ward of Mumbai city. The M/E ward is divided broadly into two important slum communities Bainganwadi and Shivaji nagar. These are like any other slum communities. There is a gathering of closely built homes, un principal(prenominal)tained roads, ex uberant drains, freely roaming cattle and groups of people chatting at each corner. The approximate population in these communities is around 5 lakhs and majority of the population are followers of Islam. Another main characteristic of this community (though negative) is its closeness to Mumbais largest cast out ground The Deonar Dumping Ground.Mumbai generates waste of approximately 7,025 tonnes per day. The management of waste in the city comes under the Municipal federation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM). The prevailing approach is that of collection of garbage from the communities by the municipal political science and disposing it off at the three main dumping sites that are currently servicing the city. Deonar is the largest dumping ground in Mumbai. It starts from the Deonar creek and ends at Baba Nagar.This dumping ground area has added on to the developmental and infrastructural issues faced in M/E. For years Deonar has been the largest garbage bin for the entire Mumbai city and today is also is a home for thousands of migrants who live in very hard conditions, lacking even the most basic amenities and earning their living on the dumping ground. In July 2008, Pratham conducted a survey in and around the dumping ground to assess the situation of the children living there.There are approximately 1300 children living in and around the dumping ground today on a prescribed basis. All of them are living with their families and have either migrated or been displaced from other part of Mumbai. 636 are working as ragpickers, of which half are going to school. The majority of the children earn up to snow rupees a day while 2 or 3 of them are making as much as 800 rupees a day. (476 earn 100 or less than 100 rupees a day, 111 earn between 100 and cd rupees a day and 5 earn 400 rupees or more) The objective of Prathams intervention is to provide educational opportunities to child ragpickers, as well as informality from their routine work in a safe, caring env ironment and to generate their interest in school-related activities.B.Educational setesThere have been interchangeable initiatives with the Government so as to turnout the issue of child rag pickers. unrivaled of the major programs through which these children are cover is the Transitional Education revolve abouts (TECs) run under the INDUS program of the Government. There are 11 TECs surrounding the dumping ground in Govandi reaching about(predicate) 450 children, many of which work part time as rag pickers.C.Vocational skill trainingThe objective of the vocational training is to provide vulnerable children with employable or business skills and allow them to be able to go / support themselves and their families after reaching an employable age. Pratham offers vocational training or refer children to other organizations that provide training. Two vocational skill training classes are nonionized for adolescent girls and provide them with basic life skills such as mehendi or tailoring.D.Mainstreaming these children into schoolIn December 2006 Hindustan Lever hold in adopted 45 children from Govandi area under their Scholarship drive to support the education of underprivileged children. Under this project the fellowship is sponsoring their school education as well as a support class run by Pratham. Prathams teachers relentlessly worked to convince the parents to send their children to school and to Prathams support classes. They organized parents meetings, counselling sessions and home visits to tell them about the importance of education.Many parents argued that sending their children to school was a loss of revenue but the teachers gave them advice on how to manage without their childrens additional revenue. Slowly the parents began taking an interest in their childrens education and supporting Prathams initiative. Pratham started with a four-hour class aimed at raising the childrens interest for educational activities. Once the children and the par ents were ready, they tangencyed the school and managed to enrol the children. The support class was set up to provide the child with educational support for retention in school.E.The Drop-in- burden assume alongside its education program, Pratham also started the first dominate in centre for the children working on the dumping ground. The Drop in centre is the major strategy and a non disputable entry point program to face up the issue of working children on the dumping ground. It is a low cost and replicable model which caters to the immediate needs of the working children on the dumping ground. This safe point of contact for children is key to their reintegration into education and vocational training, and a first step toward a collapse future.1.What is a Drop In CentreA place within the rundle of 1 km of the workplace wherein the children working on the dumping ground (who do not have a persistent routine or schedule) can drop in between 10.00 am and 5.00 pm. It would be a place which would cater to the childs recreational needs and the need