Economical
factors:
farm lease act, liquidity crisis, economic stagnancy and satisfaction of
personal needs.21
Future view for improving conditions of children employment in Egypt
On 30th and 31st of July, LCHR held its workshop “future view for improving conditions of children employment in Egypt”. This workshop had new idea and new method as the center has gathered all concerned members that were parents, children labors, journalists, lawyers, business owners, unionists, researchers, NGOs and governmental institutions. Dr. Aza Kamel, the executuve director of AKT center in addition to teamwork of Land Center worked togther to execute the new idea of the workshop that extended along two days. The method of the workshop depended on the future researching method interested in participation of all members concerned with the phenomenon of child employment that relays on some factors like discussion and analysis. The objectives of that workshop were:
1- To have dialogue between different members in order to know the current successful choices.
2- Discovering initiatives concerning the future in addition to consolidation for members’ cooperation.
3- Determining lists of agreements and disagreements points then figuring out a list of agreements to be a practical plan.
Through the first day, we aim to push the participants to get back to past events and experiences concerning children employment through seventies, eighties and nineties and register it in three papers that they already received The first paper included private events and experiences. The second one comprised local events. The third one included international events. The supporters helped children and parents, who couldn’t write to register their experiences. After writing, the supporters collected the papers. Then the participants were divided randomly into three groups in three separate rooms.
The first group examined papers of private events. The second group tested papers of local events. The third group examined papers of international events in order to collect and arrange what was written to produce one list for private events, one list for local events and one list for international events.
Economical
factors:
farm lease act, liquidity crisis, economic stagnancy and satisfaction of
personal needs.
Psychological
factors:
familial disassembly
Legal
factors:
weakness of legislation concerning child employment and unconformity of
legislation with reality.
Cultural
factors:
social heritage and wrong beliefs
Political
factors:
wars, international heritage, audience movements and international violence,
Educational
factors:
insufficient educational outputs, escapement from education because of
difficulty of courses and physical punishment in schools, private education,
technological backwardness and high costs of education.
Social factors: familial disassembly and death of fathers.
After that , each member of qualitative groups pointed at specific circles that he thought they are the most effective factors with a distinct color. For example, NGOs representatives used green color, children used red, parents used blue, business owners used black and unionists, journalists, lawyers and researchers used gray. Then there were a meeting for each quantitative group in separate room to discuss the audience. There were four groups:
- children workers
- parents
- NGOs
- Unionists, journalists, lawyers and researchers
Each group evaluated the current reality through its relation with the future. It was an experiment for accepting the reality and solving its problems. Therefore, each group began to determine modes, which they were interested in. It happened through the following steps:
- Choosing three important factors
- How does the group deal with these factors?
- What are the actions that the group aims to do?
- Listing three or more achievements concerning improving conditions of children employment that the group is proud of.
- Listing three or more points that are different from past achievements.
The children in the second session were more active and talkative when they were separated in special group far from all participants especially their parents. The supporters of that group were so wise that they activated children thoughts and imagination cleverly without restricting with articles of present papers. Finally, they got rich outputs and fantastic drawings of the children.
Through the second session, the children contacted with the supporters as their friends. Therefore, they talked about their hard work conditions in farms, side effects of crop dusting on their health, maltreatment and insulting during their work and deduction for their wages if they do any mistakes. Their suffering were revealed through their deprivation from fun and practicing their hobbies. The supporters discovered that some of those children were promoted drug addiction.
The children have chosen three factors;
- economical factors
- social factors
- educational factors
Secondly; parents Group
The parents were more talkative when they were separated in their group but they didn’t neuter away from two problems (eviction from their leased land and credit problems). Therefore, we have chosen three important problems:
1- Arable land lease act
2- problem of development and agricultural credit bank
3- educational factors
They have chosen three factors;
- Unefficiency of legislation concerning children employment
- education
- economical conditions
There were contradictory perspectives inside this group in addition to their eagerness to discuss all aspects of the phenomenon. Finally, they agreed to discuss three factors;
economical and political
circumstances
education
social factors
The third session was about ”embodiment for the future vision”. This session was devoted for creation and imagination in order to draw up a map for dreams and ambitions. The main objective of this session was to imagine a future vision for children employment in Egypt that we wish to achieve within the coming twenty years. Therefore, the session was training for creation and imagination in order to create new frames, policies, plans, relations and procedures in addition to new methods for the joint work with description for the obstacles that we might face through the next twenty years.
. After finishing the previous tasks, the participants were divided into three mixed groups, each group had to choose its own creative method to show its view in seven minutes in order to achieve socializing education. When the groups began to work, the supporters and organizers faced difficulty to lead some of the participants to imagine and dream. Consequently, the supporters and organizers began to narrate their dreams and wishes in order to encourage the others to dream. Therefore, the participants began to dream. The first group imagined that it wouldn’t be children employment after twenty years. Moreover, it would be advanced and developed education for children in ideal schools through which we could delete the great disparity between private and public schools. These schools would be provided with computers and high technology that would develop mental abilities of the child in order to be able to choose his future. Finally, two participants introduced a poem and a song.
The second group concentrated on the necessity of psychological building for the Egyptian child mentioning that the Egyptian child is one of the cleverest children all over the world but the real problem is the conditions through which he is grown up. The group was interested in using of high technology in schools in order to have creative and inventive child. After that the group had showed group’s outputs, four participants from the same group showed two theatrical scenes.
The third group “children workers” : It wasn’t a mixed group because we thought that they would be more active when they would be separated. The children workers prepared a play that consisted of four scenes “between student and his teacher in the class”, “between a student and his colleague”, “between a student and his father” and “between two mates”.
The main objective of the fourth session was to plan for direct objectives and present projects that the all participants would cooperate to execute it. There were two mixed groups beside the group of children workers. Finally, each group introduced its objectives and projects.
About the final session, the participants decided to follow execution of the three projects. The representatives of different organizations, unionists and journalists asked LCHR to organize coordinative committee to manage these projects. Therefore, the center began to gather the organizations and persons that accepted the idea of the committee and determined date of September to discuss the committee objectives. On the determined meetings, few members attended to discuss the objectives and roles of the committee. They agreed to produce form that was filled by the participants, which comprised number of questions around roles, objective and projects of the committee.