Child Clubs

One of the tried and tested ways to improve schools and ensure that more children stay in school is to establish child clubs. These are attached to schools or they can be community based also. Mentored by a teacher and a designated community member, child clubs usually meet once a month. They discuss issues such as sports and library provision  for younger children or child marriage and child labour for older children. They have their own committee and a small budget, partly supported by NGO,'s such as ours, and partly by the community and the government. Sometimes they organise door to door visits to promote a particular issue.
When a new child club is formed, their facilitators help them to formulate an action plan for the year.At the end of every year they then do a self assessment and see which important issues still need more promotion in the school or the community. In a school this could involve the whole school in project work on a particularly important local issue, such as child marriage. This allows the student themselves to influence the school curriculum, something that UK schools could learn from!

A lovely true story to illustrate the importance of child club formation particularly in deprived areas of the country is of  13 year old boy who wanted to stay in school but had to leave and work on a construction site due to family pressure for him to earn much needed money.
The boy had been a member of a school child club and his fellow members reported that he had had to leave school early to the community child safety committee. They visited his family home but were told he was over 16 and so could legally work. His friends in the child club did not believe this and they went to the district education office and obtained his birth date. After that his family met with community leaders and agreed that he could return to school. This is just one example of how child clubs can be a force for positive change.