Project Pathways: Reducing Child Labor Through Viable Paths in Education and Decent Work (Promise Pathways)

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Region/Country:
Middle East & North Africa Morocco
Project Duration:
December 2013
-
May 2017
Funding and Year:
FY
2013
: USD
4,998,430

To support efforts to reduce child labor and assist youth of legal working age to secure decent work and provide household members (age 18 and older) with opportunities for improved livelihoods in rural and peri-urban areas of Morocco.

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The Problem

Children in Morocco are engaged in the worst forms of child labor. In rural Morocco, most child labor involves agricultural activities where children work alongside their families to supplement income. Other child labor involves boys working in auto-repair, carpentry, and construction and girls working as domestics. Rural schools often suffer from inadequate infrastructure and teachers who are unequipped to address the particular needs of these children. There is a lack of capacity among officials to assess needs, develop community plans and budgets, and implement needed reform. As a result of these factors, rural youth are left with few options for gainful employment and often end up working in unsafe jobs, underemployed, or idle with little to do.

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Our Strategy

Specific objectives include:

  • Facilitate the employment of youth of legal working age in jobs that are safe, secure and adhere to legal work requirements.
  • Increase the school attendance rate of rural and peri-urban children.
  • Increase youth participation in relevant, quality vocational training.
  • Increase household members’ (18 and older) access to services and livelihood opportunities that eliminate the need for child labor Increase the capacity of labor inspectors to monitor and enforce labor laws, especially child labor laws, in rural agricultural areas.
  • Improve the ability of locally-based civil society organizations to provide services and advocate for the needs of the target population

Summary of Activities:

Proposed activities will focus on the following:

  • Leveraging Ministry of Education initiatives and other local programs to increase targeted children’s attendance in school by increasing parent involvement, implementing safe school initiatives and providing learning opportunities.
  • Providing opportunities for training, employment and entrepreneurship through quality career counseling, non-formal education and training programs in rural areas, and a coordinated intake/assessment and referral process to a network of service providers.
  • Building the capacity of household members to secure needed livelihoods and social protection and support opportunities thereby preventing the necessity of making children work.
  • Supporting the Government of Morocco’s development of integrated child protection services by building the capacity of officials to improve child labor inspections; update and operationalize hazardous list; and train on the collection and analysis of child labor data.
  • Building the capacity of civil society organizations to assess the needs of the populations they serve and advocate for positive change; improve coordination with stakeholders to ensure effective service delivery; provide them with training and tools to develop and/or join networks to leverage greater impact.
Targets:

The Promise Pathways project will reduce child labor in Morocco by increasing access to education for 5,500 children and youth (ages 6 to 17) and by providing livelihood and other social services to 1,000 siblings, parents and care-givers age18 years and above in the Marrakesh-Tensift-Al-Haouz region. The project will also raise awareness on the hazards of child labor and will build the capacity of relevant government and non-government stakeholders to better address the issue.

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Results

As of April 30th, 2016, the project has provided education services to 5,533 children who were engaged in or at high-risk of entering exploitative child labor, and livelihood services to 523 members of households with children who were engaged in or at high-risk of entering exploitative child labor. 

  Midterm Evaluation
  Final Evaluation
Grantee: Creative Associates International
Implementing Partners: and other workers’, Association Al Karam, employers’ and civil society organizations, Minister of Employment and Social Affairs (MOESA), Ministry of National Education/Directorate of Non-Formal Education and the Ministry of Social Development/ Entraide Nationale
Contact Information:
(202) 693-4843
/
Office of Child Labor, Forced Labor, and Human Trafficking (OCFT)
Tags: Child Labor Evaluations Letgirlslearn