Asia

India
 In India UNESCO supports the Project Mala School. The extensive demand in India for children as cheap labour on the carpet looms had agents bringing in children from neighbouring states. Children from numerous states were regularly found on carpet looms, having been sold into debt bondage.

It seemed obvious that simply banning children from the looms would not be a solution as it would be too hard to police. Also, child labour was not the problem but the lack of alternatives was.

Eastern Kayam OCM of London (EKC), the world’s largest Oriental carpet firm who owned E Hill & Co, a prominent carpet manufacturer in India, formed a charitable trust with the objective of providing children in the carpet weaving belt with the only meaningful alternative to working on the loom, which was schooling. Project Mala opened its first school in 1989 with its first intake of 50 children. The three year non formal course was designed with the aim of providing five years of primary education in three years. The course also incorporated an element of vocational training in carpet weaving, tailoring, horticulture, etc.

Today there are six Project Mala schools with more than a thousand children in full-time education, three of which were financially supported by UNESCO. Funds were used to provide breakfast and lunch on the school premises for 250 children, medical care with monthly check ups and the provision of free medicines, books, stationery, schoolbags, uniforms, warm clothing, shoes and vocational training. In 2008, Project Mala Schools opened a new school to extend the curriculum to grade eight as secondary education is in short supply in this area.

Northern India
 In northern India the UNESCO Foundation supports the Tibetan Children’s Village. For around 40 years, the Tibetan Children’s Village (TCV) in Dharamsala has been providing shelter to Tibetan children and teenagers, offering them a home and giving them the opportunity to engage intensively with their own culture and the Tibetan exile community in northern India. Many of the children living in the TCV fled under dangerous and life-threatening conditions from Tibet, which is occupied by Communist China – sent by their parents in the hope that their sons and daughters will have a better future in Indian exile and receive a good education.

Laos
 On the initiative of a Laotian-born French cardiologist, the French doctors of the “Association Santé France Laos” provide free medical treatment to poor children and their families. In addition, the project seeks to improve medical care and facilities in the Laotian countryside, and undertakes the training of local medical personnel. In 2008, the programme financed the travel of 5 children with severe heart problems. The children all returned to their country with a new heart.

Philippines
 In the Philippines UNESCO supports the Hansel & Gretel Foundation, which offers impoverished urban children and children of the Aetas – a minority in the Camarines Sur province – basic training to prepare them for primary school. These children come from large families and 95% of the parents are illiterate.

With UNESCO’s two year assistance plan, the Foundation will be building two further schools for the Iriga and Pili minorities (a classroom, equipped with toilet, desk and cupboard) and paying the salaries of teachers at ten schools (eight existing and the two new schools). Above and beyond that, scholarships are being made available for 80 primary schoolchildren and 40 secondary school students; school meals are being financed for five Aetas/tribal schools and teaching material is being furnished to each school. The 700 students will also be given an elementary grounding in hygiene and provided with basic medical care.

Sri Lanka
 In Sri Lanka, UNESCO is supporting a joint project, Ahungalla – Kosgoda, in conjunction with the Malteser International/Kreuzberger Kinderstiftung (Kreuzberg Children’s Foundation) and Future for Children e.V.

In the devastated fishing village of Ahungalla on the southern tip of Sri Lanka, 78 needy and large families who have lost everything, have been given a new home. A daycare centre for the youngest children is available and the adults have been provided with basic essentials, so that they can start working again. A training centre for carpentry, metalworking, bakery and butchery has also been set up, with adjacent self-run businesses and shops.

In Sri Lanka UNESCO, RTL and the Little Smie Association Koslanda are jointly supporting a project which promotes medical treatment and training in the poverty-stricken province of Uva – with particular focus on the emergency situation facing pregnant women, newborn babies and toddlers – using three integrated measures:

  1. A medical treatment centre in conjunction with medical training for young women
  2. A medical treatment and advice station for women and children
  3. An urgently needed dental practice