This is Siti
She is 10 years old and up till last year, she worked on a garbage dump in Jakarta, Indonesia. Every day, she looked for recyclable materials such as plastic bottles to make some money. Terre des Hommes is committed to stop this kind of child exploitation. Together with a local partner, Terre des Hommes helps children like Siti to go back to school. Young people are given the opportunity to follow vocational training which gives them a chance of a better future. Parents receive information about the importance of education. For Siti, the support of Terre des Hommes has helped out a lot: instead of working at a garbage dump, she’s now working on a promising future at school.
East Africa
In East Africa, Terre des Hommes primarily focuses on increasing access as well as quality of education and health care for the most vulnerable children, and on improving the livelihoods of these children and their families.
In Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, Terre des Hommes helps children that are being exploited and abused or are at risk of being exploited and abused. Among these most vulnerable children are children affected by HIV/AIDS and children with a disability.
In many East African communities, disability is seen as burden or curse. More often than not, disabled children are kept away from society, thus impeding their chances to maximise their potential and making them prone to exploitation and abuse.
The HIV/AIDS pandemic is still taking a high toll on East African societies. Orphaned children are left to fend for themselves in child-headed households, or are absorbed into extended families that are already stretched to their economic limits.
Abject poverty leads many parents and guardians to send their children to work, in order to supplement the meagre family income. Terre des Hommes concentrates on combating the worst forms of child labour in East Africa, work that endangers the health, education and normal development of children.
Even though primary education is universal in all three countries, many children miss out on getting basic education that meets quality standards. Access to medical facilities of good quality is another challenge for most vulnerable children, specifically in the remote rural areas of East Africa.
Terre des Hommes supports projects that give these children the chance of being full members of society, through education and health care. Improving the livelihoods of the children’s families is one way of preventing these children from being exploited.