Eradication and Prevention of Child Labor in Brazil through Education - EDUCAR

Project EDUCAR, a $5,000,000 project over four years directly benefited over 10,000 children, in six states of northern and northeastern Brazil. Funded by the U.S. Department of Labor, the project goal was to improve the effectiveness of formal education for children exploited in and/or vulnerable to the worst forms of child labor in Brazil, as a means to reduce the number of children engaged in child labor in high-incidence areas.

The project placeed special emphasis on complementing existing programs and filling gaps in services for child laborers who have fallen outside current government programming, among these children laboring in hazardous agriculture and sexual exploitation. The Government of Brazil (GOB), and other organizations such as the International Labor Organization, has expressed great concern over these activities. Through the USAID-funded POMMAR At-Risk Youth Program, Partners of the Americas addressed the problem of Commercial Sexual Exploitation associated with Trafficking of Persons, anchored by formal working relationships with key GOB Ministries: Education (MEC), Social Assistance (MAS), Justice and Health, as well as the Special Secretariat for Human Rights (SEDH) linked to the Presidency.

The project had four major interventions:

1. a rural hazardous family agriculture component;
2. a component to combat commercial sexual exploitation in peri-urban areas;
3. a capacity building component for schools and non-formal education; and
4. a public outreach campaign.

Principal project results are substantial increases in school and after-school program insertion, retention and success rates. Specifically, eighty five percent of targeted children will attend school regularly. Seventy percent of these children will demonstrate improved performance as measured by their participation and grades. In addition, awareness of the importance of education among target parents and policy makers will increase. Finally, municipal and state government institutions will employ cost effective, user-friendly information technology to more successfully target public investment, promote the integration of related programs, and to measure results.

Utilizing state of the art curriculum and instruction, Project EDUCAR developed products such as a low-cost, replicable model for training instructors. It created influential outreach campaigns, which keep the worst forms of child labor firmly on the agenda of policy makers and local communities. And it built the capacity of Brazilian NGOs, local, state and national government to effectively address child labor, focusing particularly on the least controlled worst forms (as defined by the ILO Convention 182).

Partners of the Americas also tapped its network of 120 chapters across the hemisphere to access volunteer technical assistance and share effective practices and identify collaborative resources. Partners exchanged experiences with our related projects in Mexico and the Dominican Republic, further strengthening the impact of Project EDUCAR. Finally, Project EDUCAR built off current child labor and trafficking in persons projects focused on the North and Northeast of Brazil, under the USAID-funded POMMAR At-Risk Youth Program.

Critical to our strategy is the substantial involvement of Brazilian NGOs in program implementation. Partners teamed up with two of the premier NGOs in Northeastern Brazil: SERTA for the rural hazardous family agriculture component; and Projeto AXÉ, for the special focus on peri-urban commercial sexual exploitation.