We believe that when industries return, women earn, and children will learn.
When numerous sustainable minds donate their time, large impacts are made! Our team wishes to thank all participants for sharing their insights to reflect on and substantiate Miss-Collect’s current Theory of Change.
Silvester Botman – Venkat Reddy – Priya Anil – Shantha Sinha – Maitreyi Shankar – Remy Verbeek – Suchismita Pai – Emmie van Halder – Sarthak Tapasvi – Sacha Weil – Willemijn Hirzalla – Leenhouts – Atul Bhalerao – Björn D’hoop – Srilata Rao – Lars Velthausz – Patrick Franssen – Marjan de Jong – Simran Singh – Joris de Caluwé – Victor Burger – Roy van den Berg– Lubna Anantakrishnan – Aditya Vyas – Thijs Cox – Chong Sa Hu – Judith Jainullah – Hanna van Hooft – Carlo Bakker
Miss-Collect strives for an integrated approach, which in other words entails that we do not wish to leave anyone behind. That is why all businesses, women and children are included within our Theory of Change. Together this established the following formula: if women receive adequate payment for their work by incorporating them into the end product, we can reduce child labour and increase education enrolment. The theory has three components: the due diligence of businesses, the earning capacity of women, and children’s education.
Our special guest Ms. Shantha Sinha, who is the Former Chairperson of the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights, gave a speech on the necessity and importance of education to reduce child labour. Briefly, Ms. Sinha stipulated that we should focus on the rights of children, and their right to education. To ensure education, it is of significance to mobilise communities through grass-root level NGO’s.
The business group stipulated that many hazards in the supply chain of large corporations are the main challenge for businesses. Miss-Collect envisions the long-term change to improve corporates’ sustainability by increasing their awareness of due diligence and compliance obligations. Simultaneously, this entails demonstrating the various advantages of corporate social responsibility for companies.
The critical audience is primarily the companies themselves. However, for corporations to realise change, this requires consumers who increase the incentive for corporations by demanding sustainable products. NGO’s and policymakers can be helpful herein, obligating or holding businesses accountable to map their supply chain and increase its transparency.
Entry points to reaching this key audience are through social and digital media, whereby the critical side note is that reaching smaller companies will be easier than larger ones. The reasoning is that smaller organisations have more flexibility in their decision-making, and therefore, realising an impact. Larger companies require more time for change, however, the impact is more significant. Also, through public institutions. Necessary to link the corporate company to goals such as CSR and the SDG to demonstrate the advantages of transparent value chains.
The necessary steps to realise change is to build openness about supply chains by companies. When businesses are transparent, this becomes measurable and enhances the urgency for companies to combat possible hazards in their value chains. This corresponds to building trusted relationships in the supply chain with partners who share similar values.
By improving transparency, the measurable effect will be the exact amount of recycled paper. At the same time, it is possible to measure how many people are supported by the work and the number of reached companies. The desired effect has positive consequences for mostly the female waste-pickers and their children and the companies. This means that the Theory of Change ultimately strives for a win-win situation for the Planet, People and Profit.
The women’s group described the main challenge as that the female waste-pickers who are at the beginning of the value chain receive meagre wages for the work they deliver.
Reach out to scrap shops, paper aggregators and paper mills in the area of Pune to get them on board. Increase knowledge and awareness on why more proceedings should be transferred to the women. The entry point of reaching this key audience is through already existing contacts Miss-Collect has with paper mills. Moreover, new connections can be explored in the municipality as well.
The necessary steps to realise an adequate income opportunity for the women are to increase the margin for waste-pickers to receive monetary benefits. This can be achieved by incorporating, for example, corporates and paper mills to support the waste-pickers. Simultaneously, companies can assist in engaging children of waste-pickers in sports and other extracurricular activities.
The measurable effect of the work is the number of women involved in the paper recycling of products, instead of solely in the waste-picking and collecting. In terms of waste-pickers, they also tried to explore how their income can be increased. In conclusion, there are various effects of the work by incorporating women into the earning capacity of recycled wastepaper products.
The children’s subgroups found that the main challenge was that large numbers of children continue to be involved in child labour. As similar to the previous group, the long-term change is to establish child labour free safe zones within Pune that enhance and stimulate education. The critical audience is defined as the waste-pickers and their children and institutions or organisations that can assist in identifying child labourers. Moreover, connections exist with educational institutions that play a significant role within the child labour free safe zone.
The entry point to reaching the audience is to identify various actors who are important stakeholders. Organisations of waste-pickers are directly involved and see child labour daily, so it is efficient to engage with such organisations to identify child labour. A similar holds for scrap shops in the region that know child labour as well. Moreover, NGO’s and youth groups in the area have extensive expertise on challenges such as child labour and where the children are located. In the local government, representatives can play a significant role as well. Regarding the element of education, Miss-Collect can engage with teachers in schools, specific school boards of schools in the region, and the department of education in the local government. Discuss where and how we can find children that are not enrolled or are no longer attending schools.
The necessary and most urgent step is to establish a child labour alert to identify the children and find the root causes that underpin and persist their labour. Sponsorship and financial incentives can help the children to remain in school. This can be achieved by supporting female waste-pickers who bring their children to school, for example, through higher wages. In addition, the sub-group finds the value of care, support and security of priority for the children. One example is the case of migrant children is that they do not have documents, making it difficult to enrol their children into school. These obstacles must be eliminated, and the families should receive more guidance.
The measurable effect of the work is that child labourers are identified and transformed from the landfill into the classrooms. Herein, the schools and teachers are of enormous importance. As children are no longer attending schools, educational institutions should notice that there are drop-outs. Therefore, necessary to then trace the drop-out to be able to get them enrolled again. The information on the root causes underpinning child labour is required to combat child labour and prevent drop-outs. Provide incentives from businesses to women to send their children to school. The broader benefits of this are that education enrollment is positive for generations onward.
Miss-Collect team
Recent Comments