|
The "School for Iqbal," established in November 1996 by so many big-hearted classrooms and individuals and SUDHAAR ,our Pakistani partners, is doing very well. The school is a model for others to study and duplicate. The school has a very low dropout rate. The school has more girls attending than boys. The school is a tiny miracle, offering hope and education to Pakistani children. Also, to attack poverty, the underlying cause of child labor, micro-credit loans have been made to over 40 Pakistani mothers. The mothers use the money to open small craft businesses. Those businesses create income. The income breaks the family out of the cycle of poverty. Breaking the cycle of poverty will break the cycle of child labor. Over 90% of these "School for Iqbal" mini-loans have been repaid! The BBC has contacted this campaign and will do a piece on it! Marie Clair magazine has contacted this campaign and will run a profile of one of the co-founders of this campaign, Ms. Amanda Loos. Look for it in the September issue. The largest teachers' union in America, the National Education Association, has selected the teacher advisor of this campaign as the 2000 recipient of its "Applegate / Dorros Peace and International Understanding Award." As a result, many teachers will learn from the award all about this campaign. The Peace Corps recognized this campaign by awarding it its 2000 Global Education Award. Student leaders Ms. Evelyn McInnes and John Cappellano (both in grade 8) represented this campaign recently (May 2000) on a half hour TV program focusing on child labor. Joining them was a very well spoken young activist from the "Free the Children" campaign. Together, these three raised a lot of awareness about child labor issues. Scholastic News ran a story about this campaign in a recent (May 2000) issue. Thanks, Scholastic! Representatives of this campaign, Ms. Mary Bloomer, grade 7, and her big sister Ms. Elizabeth Bloomer, grade 9, will be panelists at the Child Labor Coalition's Conference in Washington, DC. 10th grade campaign representative, Ms. Migdalia Tracy, represented the campaign at a youth leadership conference in Puerto Rico ! Over 600 young people from El Salvador, Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Brazil and Puerto Rico attended. The Susan Kuklin book titled "Iqbal Masih and the Crusaders Against Child Labor" has won a Bank Street College Award for non-fiction and is now in its second printing. Dr. David Parker's awesome child labor book titles "Stolen Dreams" is also highly recommended. Dr. Parker is a modern day Lewis Hine. The American Federation of Teachers (another huge teachers' union in America) has a superb kit on child labor which individuals or classrooms will find very informative. It is only ten dollars and you get a binder full of background, lesson plans, activities, and a 16 minute video on child labor. The AFT is in Washington, DC and its International Affairs department produced this excellent kit. The story of Iqbal Masih is included in the video. Thanks to you, this campaign continues to grow, to educate, to move others to action FOR CHILDREN. Thanks to SUDHAAR and to schoolchildren in all 50 states and 32 countries for supporting this campaign! Together, we're making a great deal of noise. A final note, the students who met Iqbal Masih in 1994 and founded this campaign graduated from high school this week. Congratulations to you all! |
Mirror Image, Inc. and
Broadmeadows Middle School