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Ambassador Watt at the Ceremony Announcing DOL’s Child Labor Education Initiative (Project Destino)
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Many of Panama’s poor and indigenous children must help their families by working on farms, limiting their educational development and lifelong opportunities. To combat these effects, three Panamanian organizations—Casa Esperanza, Fundamujer and Fundacion Tierra Nueva—are teaming up to provide nonformal and flexible education opportunities for 7,100 child laborers.
“All three NGOs will join efforts communicating the needs and human rights of working children and children at risk of becoming workers, to the families, school communities and regional and national authorities. The combination of experiences of these the three partners will result in changing the destiny of our working children, and of the destiny of children at risk of becoming “working children,” said Melinda West de Anguizola, project manager of DESTINO.
Words by U.S. Ambassador Linda E. Watt at the Launching Ceremony of Project DESTINO to Combat Child Labor in Panama. It is my pleasure to be with you here today to launch this U.S. government program that provides for $3 million education program over three years to help fight child labor in Panama. Congratulations to Creative Associates, which will be implementing the program, and its partners Casa Esperanza, FundaMujer, and Fundacion Tierra Nueva.
I am very excited about this program. Child labor and education are key issues in development. This project will help poor children and families find a way to better their situation without falling into the trap of sending their children into the workforce to the detriment of their education.
For a long time children in Panama have traveled with their families and worked during harvest time to have a subsistence income. This practice has condemned children and families to a cycle of poverty. Without learning to read or do math well, children have few options as they grow older and their children suffer the same fate. This is why I say that education and the elimination of child labor are key issues in development.
For this reason, the U.S. government is committed to eliminating the worst forms of child labor and the promotion of education. For example, in FY 2004, the US government, through the U.S. Department of Labor, provided over $110 million in grants around the world to remove young workers from abusive work and to improve access to basic education.
Also, for more than a year and a half, the U.S. government has been funding, through the ILO, a $1 million program to help the Government of Panama identify and combat the worst forms of child labor. In addition, the U.S. government funds the ILO’s regional programs on the elimination of child labor in agriculture and the elimination of the commercial sexual exploitation of children.
This new $ 3 million child education program, known as “Project Destino,” will help many rural Panamanian children and their families to escape the cycle of poverty. As the project coordinator Melinda Anguizola will explain more fully in her presentation, the program will increase awareness of the problem of child labor and the importance of education. The program will fill gaps in the education system through after-school tutorials, additional seasonal farm schools, bilingual education for indigenous areas, vocational training, scholarships for secondary school, and health and nutritional assistance. The program will also help strengthen institutions and networks dedicated to fighting child labor.
I am very thankful that here in Panama we have such great institutions to help make this program work. Casa Esperanza has shown its commitment to stopping child labor and has already helped many children to stop working during harvest time. FundaMujer has helped many women, children, and families through its vocational training programs. And Fundacion Tierra Nueva has great experience providing training in the Darien.
These institutions have also shown their commitment to working with the Government of Panama to help children and families so that the gains made by this program continue at the end of the program’s three years. For example, I understand that the project will be working closely with the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Youth, Women, Children, and Family. We are very happy that we can help the government of Panama to combat child labor and increase education through this program at a time when the government of Panama is showing such energy and interest in the promotion of social issues.
Thank you very much.
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