SUCCESSFUL ENGAGEMENT OF TEACHERS AND PUPILS IN KORCA DISTRICT

related to the seminar on child labour prevention and elimination in Korca

Following project implementation activities, we organised an important three days seminar in Korca district, on teachers engagement to prevent and eliminate child labour. 22 participants, (12 of them women), especially from the pilot schools, (Asdreni, Naim Frasheri, Sheqeras and Pojan), but also from district working group and some other schools, took part in all the sessions of the seminar. Both chairmen Dobrushi and Kruja, as well as Dutch experts from AOb, Marten Kircz and Michel Kersten took part and were active during the discussions in the seminar.
The representative of ILO-IPEC in the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, Shkelqesa Manaj, organised two intreactive sessions duringt the first day of the seminar, dealing with international standards and Albanian legislation on child labour prevention and elimination, as well as SCREAM Modules and Manual on Non Formal Education.
Morning session of the second day was organsied in Asdreni School, participating also representatives from the administration of the school, pupils and parents, were was discussed about the situation in the school, work done, results achieved and how to enlarge the number of teachers participating in direct work with pupils dropped out or at risk to drop out of school. An artistic performance of the pupils of this school was integrated naturaly in the activities of the seminar. Afternoon session was organised in the form of a round table with participation of other stakeholders, including representatives from educational directorate, prefecture, police, as well as other NGO dealing with elimination of child labour in Korca district, where the main topic was the coordination of actions among all the stakeholders involved in this issue.
Saturday sessions were concrete discussions of each of the participants, regarding their experience and problems raised during this 8-9 months work, being focussed especially to Roma children, who are mostly at risk to drop out because of the mentality of their parents, who are more for working than education, especially when it is about upper classes of primary and secondary school. Marten Kircz introduced AOb experince on teachers engagemnt in child labour prevention and elimination, insisting on monitoring system and concrete work with individual pupils at risk to drop out of school. The main points of a working plan were discussed by the end of the seminar, which will be further elaborated by  presidencies of both FSASH and SPASH and submitted to all the stakeholders in Korca, in the next meeting of distrcit working group.
It was important that this seminar was organised after a concrete work done and some results achieved, which were reported during the seminar. More than 200 pupils have been subject of concrete work of more than 55 teachers. Some 103 pupils were reported as beneficiaries of all of these activities espcially from 4 selected schools, who are being integreated normally in the schools, (45 of which are in Naim Frasheri shcool and 22 in Asdreni school).
Of course the work will continue taking also into consideration all the conclusions drawn from the seminar.