Bangladeshi organization delivers a lesson on ending child labour

Level 2 l Intermediate
1 Warmer
Discuss your answers to the questions.
In your country, …
• … at what age do children start primary school?
• … when can children leave school?
• … what happens if children do not attend school?
• … at what age can children legally start part-time work?

2 Key words
Match the key words with the definitions below. Then, find them in the article to read them in context. The
paragraph numbers are given to help you.

catch up compensation corrugated iron discourage domestic worker grassroots

hazardous irritate mindset rickshaw rights slum

1. hard heavy metal shaped into parallel folds _________________________ (para 1)

2. hurt a part of your body, making it painful, red or swollen _________________________ (para 2)

3. the ordinary people in a community, country, society or organization _________________________ (para 3)

4. a poor area of a town where the houses are in very bad condition _________________________ (para 3)

5. dangerous, especially to people’s health or safety _________________________ (para 3)

6. improve in order to reach the same standard as someone else _________________________ (para 4)

7. a servant in someone’s house _________________________ (para 5)

8. a way of thinking about things _________________________ (para 6)

9. try to prevent something from happening, especially because you do not approve of it or think it is harmful
_________________________ (para 6)

10. a small vehicle with two wheels used for carrying passengers and pulled by someone riding a bicycle or
walking _________________________ (para 8)

11. things that you are morally or legally allowed to do or have _________________________ (para 9)

12. money you get because you have lost something else _________________________ (para 11)
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NEWS LESSONS / Bangladeshi organization delivers a lesson on ending child labour / Intermediate
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Bangladeshi organization delivers a lesson on ending child labour
Level 2 l Intermediate
Bangladeshi organization delivers a
lesson on ending child labour
Anna Leach in Dhaka
11 March, 2016
1 The small space is set up to look like a
classroom. On its corrugated iron walls are
educational charts – letters of the alphabet and a
map of Bangladesh.
2 But, it is hard to concentrate – there is the
constant sound of hammering and chemicals
in the air that stick in the back of the throat and
irritate the eyes. However, the children who learn
in this three-square-metre room are the lucky
ones. They have escaped working in the
factories opposite.
3 For 14 years, SOHAY, a grassroots non-
governmental organization (NGO) funded by
the Global Fund for Children and Comic Relief,
has been working in slum areas of Dhaka to get
child labourers into school. It focuses on children
working in hazardous conditions.
4 The classroom is one of 23 urban development
centres that SOHAY has set up in the capital.
The centres prepare children for primary school
with classes that help them catch up on their
education. Once they are in primary school, the
children get help with their homework at
the centres.
5 Alamin, ten, who used to work in a plastic factory,
attends one of the centres. His father is a street
seller and his mother a part-time domestic
worker. They are all happy that he’s now in
school and away from hazardous work. His friend
Rabi says he wants to forget his past in the
factory. “I like school,” he says.
6 “The urban development centres aim to make
the communities more positive about education
and change their cultural mindset towards the
children,” says SOHAY’s programme manager,
Mohammed Abdullah al-Mamun. SOHAY also
has sessions for parents and employers to
discourage child labour and offers skills training
to increase family income.
7 “Getting working children into formal education is
really very difficult,” says Mamun. “They are not
like other children. After they leave work, they
sometimes find it difficult to make friends and
adapt to school. It is also very difficult to make
sure they stay in school – lots of these children
don’t finish school.”
© Macmillan Publishers Ltd 2016
NEWS LESSONS / Bangladeshi organization delivers a lesson on ending child labour / Intermediate
8 Seven-year-old Zhorna Akter Sumayya has two
older brothers – they are both in work (one at
a restaurant, one at a local club). But, after her
introduction to education at one of SOHAY’s
centres, she now goes to a state primary school.
Her family live in the slum and her parents can’t
survive without the money their sons earn. Her
father works in a rickshaw garage and her mother
is a domestic worker, but they wanted their
daughter to go to school.
9 In 2015, SOHAY helped 1,540 children to leave
hazardous work and 2,125 more children – those
in danger of starting work – into school. About
780 more children are preparing to enter school
in 2017. The organization is also helping 635
children who are working in hazardous conditions
to know their rights.
10 The Labour Law of Bangladesh 2006 does not
allow children under the age of 14 to work but,
according to the UN children’s agency, UNICEF,
4.7 million children under that age are employed
and 1.3 million aged five to 17 work in
hazardous industries.
11 “It was difficult to get them into school without any
compensation for their time,” says Sadia Nasrin,
who runs Sonjag, another Dhaka grassroots
NGO. “To solve this problem, Sonjag started
working closely with the community in the slums
where the children live.”
12 The organization talked to the community about
why it was important for children to go to school.
They chose community volunteers who wanted
to change children’s lives and formed groups
with social workers, community leaders, mothers,
young volunteers and the local government.
13 “The groups play a very important role – they
motivate employers to let children leave for two to
three hours a day to attend school and to make
sure the workplace is safe for the children,”
says Nasrin.
14 When the children have missed starting school at
five years old, it is a race against time to prevent
them from growing up without an education.
“When they are older, it is really very difficult to
get them to go to school,” says Mamun. “Children
are just passing their time without education and
waiting to do hazardous work. We are working to
stop child labour.”
© Guardian News and Media 2016
First published in The Guardian, 11/03/16
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Bangladeshi organization delivers a lesson on ending child labour
Level 2 l Intermediate
3 A short summary
Use some of the key words from task 2 to complete the gaps in the summary below.
SOHAY, a _________________________(1) non-governmental organization, is working with communities
in Bangladesh to try to stop child labour. They have set up urban development centres, some of which
are very small and have walls made of _________________________(2). In these centres, children
who work in _________________________(3) conditions and have not been to school before can
_________________________(4) with the school work they have missed so that they can start primary school.
SOHAY works together with the communities and employers to try to change their cultural
_________________________(5) towards children and to _________________________(6) child labour. Many
parents want to send their children to school. However, some families don’t want their children to get an education
because they do not get any financial _________________________(7).

4 Expressions
a. Find two expressions at the end of the article that include the word time.
b. What do the expressions mean?
c. Use the expressions in sentences of your own.

5 Discussion
• Is child labour ever acceptable?
• What can we do to help to end child labour?

6 Webquest
Do some research and give a three-minute presentation, or make a poster, about one of the
following topics.
• UNICEF
• Bangladesh, the country and its people
• Comic Relief
• the Global Fund for Children
• SOHAY
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NEWS LESSONS / Bangladeshi organization delivers a lesson on ending child labour / Intermediate
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Bangladeshi organization delivers a lesson on ending child labour
Level 2 l Intermediate
KEY

2 Key words

1. corrugated iron
2. irritate
3. grassroots
4. slum
5. hazardous
6. catch up
7. domestic worker
8. mindset
9. discourage
10. rickshaw
11. rights
12. compensation

3 A short summary

1. grassroots
2. corrugated iron
3. hazardous
4. catch up
5. mindset
6. discourage
7. compensation

4 Expressions

a. a race against time; passing their time

b. a situation in which someone must do or finish
something very quickly because they only have a
limited amount of time to do it; doing something
that makes a period of time seem shorter and end
more quickly, especially when you are bored
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NEWS LESSONS / Bangladeshi organization delivers a lesson on ending child labour / Intermediate
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