A tobacco plantation isn’t a safe or healthy place to work for a child, but it was the only way my family could survive. My parents are poor farmers and barely able to support a family of eight on MK20,000. This is about US$ 50 per year. I had nothing. My parents are tobacco tenants and we all had to work together as a family. I’ve been working in tobacco since I was five. Attending school was never an option for me.
Many years ago, when my kids were small, my wife and I used to leave them at the local day care centre so that we could go to work. Our families lived far away and it’s hard to imagine how we both could have kept working without that vital service.
Every day, millions of working parents around the world do the same thing, entrusting their children to early childhood education (ECE) personnel in crèches, nursery schools and day care centres. It’s no surprise that many countries around the world are investing heavily in it. Continue reading
