Providing parents with funds that allow them to send their children to school rather than to work

ahorwart — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 12:39:17 -0500

The Bolsa Escola program in Brazil provides families with a monthly stipend so that children can attend school instead of work in the streets. The program, which began in the city of Brasilia, was created with the realization that the working children of today are the poor adults of tomorrow. Bolsa Escola was expanded to a federal program in 2001.

This tactic addresses one of the root causes of child labor: families who would like to send their children to school but cannot afford to do so because they need the income.

The Bolsa Escola program is managed by the Department of Education. Qualifying families receive monthly payments and ATM cards (electronic bank cards) that allow them to access the stipends directly. Families must meet the following criteria: The children must be between the ages of six and 15 and cannot miss more than two days of school per month; each unemployed adult in the family must be registered with the National Employment System (SINE) and actively seeking employment; and the family must have lived in Brazil for at least five years. The family receives the stipend for a minimum of two years with a maximum of eight years. If a child does not meet the mandatory attendance rate, the stipend for that month is withheld.

In addition to encouraging children to complete their education and combating poverty, this tactic has significantly decreased the numbers of child laborers and reduced the numbers of school dropouts. To date the Bolsa Escola has helped the families of 8,289,930 children. When the federal program was created, Bolsa Escola became the broadest social program in the world.

Often families are complicit in the abuse of child labor – not because they want to be but because their livelihood depends on it – this tactic provides the incentive and alternative to avoid that. Providing ATM cards that look like and can be used like other ATM cards also helps recipients avoid the stigma associated with poverty and public assistance. This approach of compensating parents through monthly payments requires significant financial resources. The Bolsa Escola program also demanded a great deal of administration and coordination among the various agencies and institutions.

Public Audiences

bharris — Fri, 25 May 2007 20:08:11 -0500

Public Audiences: Creating Space to Recognize Victims of Internal Conflict in Peru

By Sofia Macher, Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Peru

Download full notebook below. [*note]

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) of Peru is one of the most recent experiences of processes of transitional justice, institutionalized with the aim of exploring the truth hidden behind a past characterized by massive abuse of human rights. One of the central activities in this process is the Public Audiences, created with the aim of legitimizing and dignifying the personal experiences of the victims in order to support the therapeutic and recuperative work on their behalf.

The TRC was created by the President of the transitional government in June of 2001. It was made up of 12 commission members, all Peruvians, and duration of two years. It did not count on jurisdictional powers: its mandate was to document the grave violations of human rights committed during the twenty years (1980-2000) of the internal armed conflict. However, the Public Audiences were formal sessions in which a victim or family member of a victim would give an account of what had happened before a group of people that had the ethical authority stemming from the State to listen and express their solidarity and acknowledgement. Unlike other Truth Commissions, the purpose of these sessions was not for investigation, but instead an audience for the restitution of rights, of citizenship, and of dignity for the victim, an audience to listen in respectful silence, lending ears to and giving voice to those who had never before been given such things. All these people were assaulted by the State that had the obligation to protect them, and were later rejected by society. Many of them were displaced to other areas, condemned to fear, to silence that broke with the social support of their own communities. The Public Audiences are, so to speak, a step towards the restitution of this so necessary support. But the audiences also had an effect on society itself. Knowing a personal history, one that is parallel to the official history -- that until that moment everyone had believed and known -- had a much greater impact than the Commission’s final report could have ever had. Having heard hundreds of testimonies from different areas of the country, it put on the table the horror to which no Peruvian could feel unconnected.

This notebook shares the way in which the TRC in Peru implemented its Public Audiences in order to dignify the victims, contributing to the general recuperation of society. Certainly there are similarities with other processes and experiences (South Africa or Nigeria, for example), but there are also new aspects that are important since a new format was created that permitted Peru to begin a process of laying the foundations to generate change in the interior of the State, and also in society itself. The lessons of this experience can be useful for any focused process, more so in reconstructing the psychosocial fabric of the people and the victimized society, than in blaming the perpetrators. It is also helpful here to emphasize the effort of the International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) to support these learning processes.

*Note: You need Adobe Acrobat Reader to open the files marked with an asterisk (*). You can download a free version of this program from www.adobe.com.

Mediation, English

Providing parents with funds that allow them to send their children to school rather than to work

Public Audiences

Public Audiences: Creating Space to Recognize Victims of Internal Conflict in Peru