After completing high school, I left Kathmandu for the United States to pursue a higher education. That was around 15 years ago and back then, most young people who left Nepal went to similar destinations in the “developed world.”
Not my cousin. He dropped out of high school and went to work in the Middle East. Close to two decades later he still works there, having just left Nepal for another two-year stint.
The launch date was set in stone. 12 June; World Day Against Child Labour; opening day of the football World Cup. With just months to go, we were looking for a big idea that would enable us to harness the power of communications to reach traditional and new audiences with a strong message about the 168 million children in child labour.
We had not planned on using that most ancient way of expression – music – but through our artists’ engagement programme, Artworks, we learnt that a US musician, Mike Einziger, was interested in the ILO’s work and wanted to contribute. He is the Grammy-nominated lead guitarist for the rock band, Incubus, who wrote the guitar riff for one of the biggest pop songs of 2013, Wake Me Up. We set up a meeting and he told us he wanted to write us a song about child labour. Download the song | Learn about the campaign
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When you’re up against a challenge as big as improving conditions for workers in Haiti’s garment sector, it’s easy to lose sight of the progress being made and focus on the problems. Risks to health and safety are still among the biggest. More than three in four factories in Haiti don’t meet the requirements for emergency preparedness.
I work as an Enterprise Advisor for Better Work Haiti. It’s my job to assess factories and help workers and employers to solve problems and improve working conditions. When we first started operations in 2009, the words “Occupational Safety and Health” weren’t in the vocabulary here. When talking to workers and managers about the basics of how to keep safe, we were often starting from scratch. Continue reading
Work In Progress 