Uganda (24-26 April)

The Board Meeting was held in Masindi district, where the ECLATU project (Eliminating Child Labour in Tobacco-growing, Uganda) is being implemented since January 2004. This 3-year project focuses on raising awareness on child labour, improving access to primary schools and setting-up a vocational skills training institute. More information here. Over the past 14 months, the following progress has been achieved:

Awareness-raising

• Workshops were held with more than 7,000 tobacco farmers, teachers, parents and children. The original project target was 2,500 participants.

• 91 child labour committees have been formed at village, parish, sub-county and district levels. These committees are essential to ensure ownership and sustainability of the project.

• Among these newcomers, 1,400 children had never been to school before and the others had not been attending school regularly.

• This success has created a demand for more classrooms to be built in order to avoid overcrowding in schools. The district authorities, who are fully integrated in the project implementation and steering committee, have promised to include the building of new classrooms in their 2005/06 budget.

Vocational training institute

• The construction of the buildings have been completed and the institute is to start operating in September 2005 (6 months ahead of schedule).

• More than 1,000 children have already been identified as future students. They will be trained in the following skills: agriculture, construction, carpentry, tailoring, etc. Most of them come from a tobacco farming background and have dropped out of primary school at a young age.

Board visit

Board Members visited the communities, primary schools and the vocational institute.

The commitment of the Ugandan authorities in ensuring the sustainability of the project was demonstrated by the participation of no less than four Ministers to the Meeting:
• Minister of Gender, Labour and Social Development: Hon. Zoe Bakoko Bakoru
• Minister of Education and Sports: Hon. Simon Mayende

• Minister of State for Sports: Hon. Charles Bakabulindi
• Minister of State, Vice-President's office: Hon. Philip Byaruhanga

Tanzania (26-28 April)

The implementation of this 3-year project also started in January 2004. This project, which is being implemented by the International Labour Organisation, focuses on raising awareness on child labour, withdrawing and reintegrating child labourers into primary schools, building additional classrooms to existing primary schools, sending child labourers to vocational training, providing vulnerable families of withdrawn children with alternative livelihood opportunities. More information here. During the past 15 months, much has been achieved:

Awareness-raising

• Workshops were held with 2,500 participants in 36 villages. The original project target was 25 villages.

Primary school

• 717 children (of which 40% are girls) have been withdrawn from labour and reintegrated into primary schools. The original project target was 550 children.

• 15 classrooms have been/are being built in existing primary schools with the aim of targeting chronic overcrowding and avoiding classes to be held outside, under trees.

Classrooms being built	Overcrowded classrooms	Classes held outside

• 62 children have already been trained in vocational training institutes with skills such as carpentry, brick-laying, tailoring. An additional 180 children are to go through similar training.

Income-generating activities

• 430 vulnerable families of withdrawn children have been trained with income-generating activities. 130 of them have already started new activities, such as crop diversification, small business, cattle and poultry. The next stage of the project will encourage the setting-up of grassroots credit and savings groups.

Board visit

The Board Members visited the project sites in Urambo district. They met with the project beneficiaries, local implementers (5 community-based organisations) and district authorities. The Minister of Labour, Youth Development and Sports, Hon. Juma A. Kapuya, attended the Board Meeting and assured the Tanzanian government's full support to the project.

Geneva, 12 May 2005