Our Views on Child Labour

Griffeen Valley pupils with some of their work on child labour

Wednesday, May 07, 2008

Child- Labour is when children don't have a voice, actually they do, they just don't have a right to use it. Not only do they not have a right to use their voices, they don’t have a right to Education, Family and Care and loads of other rights. 218,000,000 children are involved in child -labour. 218,000,000 children but only one story, and only one solution: to spread the word of child-labour. In our class we have learned about child-labour through a lot of different experiences. Like for instance we wrote a poem on what those 218,000,000 children missed out on, the good fun stuff. Then we listened to a poem that Larry O' Loughlin wrote called Sad .It was about children in the world making the toys that we play with today but that they don’t get to play with. Later on in the year we started to do a play on child-labour where we're all locked inside bars in a prison, doing work almost 24 hours straight. We stitch up footballs for the Olympics, shoes (boots) for the footballers to wear, and tracksuits and souvenirs for them to sell. 218,000,000 children do this. Not for 15 minutes like in our play or story, their story is 24 hours. They asked us to spread the word of child-labour with our voices because they can’t use theirs. And we're going to make a difference.                                        

HEY STOP CHILD LABOUR TODAY

By : Nadia Khan, 3^rd Class
Griffeen Valley Educate Together National School
Lucan Co. Dublin

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I just can't believe it! How could people be so mean to children? It’s not fair that

218,000,000 children have been taken from their homes to work as child labourers. It’s just NOT RIGHT! It’s not good enough that children have to work like this. It’s just CRUEL! It has to STOP NOW!
 
My class and I have been working on child labour. When I first heard about it I was shocked. I couldn't believe I didn't hear this before. I felt scared and horrified that people could do this to children. It made me feel that I had to do something about it and put a STOP to it.

 I thought my life was the hard life but when I heard this it all became clear I had the easy life compared to them. It changed my life I started to help more around the house after finding out I have the easy life and they have the hardest life of all.

My school and I did a BIG BALLOT about children’s RIGHTS. There was the RIGHTS to be HEARD, HEALTH, EDUCATION, PLAYTIME and a few others.

 My class and I are going to Portlaoise to do a play about child labour, to spread the word that child labour must be STOPPED SOON OR ELSE ?


Hey Stop Child Labour Today !

By : Zoë Nelson, 3^rd Class
Griffeen Valley Educate Together National School
Lucan Co. Dublin

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We learned in November about child labour. 218,000,000 children have been taken out of their homes to work in other places.  Larry O’Loughlin told us a story about a boy whose dad was sick and they took the boy to work.  We learned about the Big Ballot. There were 5 boxes and you had to pick what was most important. There was education, family and care, children's voices must be heard, food and water. Family and care got the most votes. The Big Ballot is about children and children's voices must be heard. That means that for the children who work, our voices are theirs. The children who work work 24 hours every day and they never have a break. The children make things like track suits and teddy bears and balls, tops and lots of things. They never get paid very much, they don't know their age because they have worked every single day of their lives. The children don't know how long they're there. That's why we’re doing a play so that people know how to stop child labour. We want to stop child labour.

By : Ajla Karic, 4^th Class
Griffeen Valley Educate Together National School
Lucan Co. Dublin

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In our class we looked at child labour.  We know that kids have lots of fun; child labourers don’t have any fun and have to work all day. Child labourers don’t ask for anything except to share their story with others about child labour.  . We are going to do a play on child labour in Portlaoise. We act as child labourers and keep on doing the play again and again. That is just a tiny glimpse of what they do. We know that when we are bored, we can do something to cheer ourselves up. Child labourers tell stories to cheer themselves up. We did plays of child labour stories. We were pretending to be child labourers and I felt as if we were real child labourers. We made our own rap and song about child labour. We want you to spread the story about child labour. Before all this we learned about the Big Ballot. You might think Ireland is a rich country but some children in Ireland can’t go to school. Human rights must be applied to children. These are the following rights that should be applied to children: Education, family, care, enough food, home and shelter, play and leisure.

By : Syed Hussain Ali, 3^rd Class
Griffeen Valley Educate Together National School
Lucan Co. Dublin

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Today there are millions of kids in child labour. Their lives have no meaning. They just work all day. They are treated like slaves. They don’t go to school. They have no chance to play or have fun. They don’t have enough to eat or get enough sleep. I think this is wrong and I want it to stop now!

By :  Luke Basset, 4^th Class
Griffeen Valley Educate Together National School
Lucan Co. Dublin