IKEA Foundation gives further €7m to SCF for Indian child labour campaign
Howard Lake | 12 June 2014 | News
IKEA Foundation is to give €7 million to Save the Children in India to expand a child rights programme to reach a further 790,000 children at risk of child labour in India’s cotton communities.
The grant announcement has been made on World Day Against Child Labour.
The fund will be used by Save the Children and its partners Breakthrough and Pratham to keep children out of cotton fields, and in classrooms where they can learn, play, grow and develop and be children.
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Second phase
The expanded programme is building on the success of the original project which began in 2009 in more than 1,800 villages in in the states of Maharashtra and Gujarat. More than 600,000 children have been reached through its education and child protection programmes, and over 150,00 children have been moved out of child labour and into classrooms.
Focusing on help for girls
The new stage of the project will include a focus on protecting girls by establishing community groups that will champion girls’ rights and awareness of gender based discrimination and ensuring girl’s education. The states of Punjab and Haryana have the lowest child sex ratios in the country, with 834 and 846 per 1000 male children (2011). Per Heggenes, CEO of IKEA Foundation, explained why it was making the new grant.
“We know there is no quick-fix solution to ending child labour, but long–term approaches can yield impressive results. The IKEA Foundation, with our partners, has been tackling this issue in India for nearly a decade. This new phase reinforces our long-term commitment and our desire to help millions more children out of child labour and back into the classrooms.”
About IKEA Foundation
The IKEA Foundation aims to improve opportunities for children and youth in the world’s poorest communities by funding holistic, long-term programmes that can create substantial, lasting change.
The Foundation works with strong strategic partners applying innovative approaches to achieve large-scale results in four fundamental areas of a child’s life: a place to call home; a healthy start in life; a quality education; and sustainable family income. Currently-funded programmes benefit an estimated 100 million children.
- €1 million donation from IKEA Foundation to the Home Project (3 October 2017)
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.