In the past 12 months – under the umbrella of the Making More Health initiative – we have started a new partnership with a local NGO in Avinashi (close to Coimbatore). Together with Vizhuthugal Social Education and development Trust, several programs have taken place to prevent children from manual scavengers families to drop out of schools thus preventing them also from child labour. During the Covid crises the risk of child labor has grown significantly.

As Vizhuthugal’s director stated: “During the second phase of Covid-19, most of the people in our scavenger family districts were left clueless about their livelihood. The most affected during the lockdown were school children, mostly those in governmental schools. Many parents sent their children at work only because of poverty and few children went to jobs to buy mobile phones to use for online classes. It will be difficult to bring them back to normal life. In our district, we – together with our partners of Karl Kübel institute and Making More Health – helped 178 children to rejoin school.”

Website: Vizhuthugal.org.in

Health awareness camps, distribution of personal protective equipment kits provided to sanitary workers and manual scavengers, food kits and mental health training session were supported by MMH, too. More than 500 families were engaged in this program.

Today, with a small group we will visit our partner Vizhuthugal. And will share soon about it.