Drama - Child Labour

The drama on the subject of Child Labour presented by Middle School went through many stages: first, we had started by discussing the problems faced by the children of many countries such as Bangladesh, India, UK, Congo and Nigeria. The research and discussions did not take as much time as writing the script, for we wanted the drama to have an impact on the audience. As soon as the script was finalized, we had begun practicing. While practicing we had learned a lot; not only about child labour but also on how to feel a character and how other countries communicate.

·       What the drama was meant to convey?

Awareness of children suffering around the world because they have to work instead of receiving an education.

·       How did the drama begin?

The drama began with a song sung by the character.

During the drama, the child laborers were represented as puppets to show their suffering. This made the drama more creative and innovative.

·       Scene 1

Scene 1 displayed the plight of the young mothers in Bangladesh who were forced to get married at very young ages.

·       Scene2

Scene 2 described the situation of the young boy soldiers in Congo, who were forced to fight in dangerous wars at the tender age of 12. In this scene, the soldiers suffer in war or have to face death.

·       Scene 3

Scene 3 talks about child miners in India, who were forced to mine in gold mines and at times had died on their jobs. This scene is very tragic, as one of the miners die due to internal collapsing in the mines. In this scene, the children come out of work with aches and pains and sometimes suffer by losing one of their legs or eyes or sometimes even both.

·       Scene 4

Scene 4 talks about the children who have to sell wares at red lights and roadsides to earn a living, but unfortunately, no one is ready to buy the chocolates sold by them.

·       Scene 5

This scene explains about how a girl becomes an orphan and is forced to work for a farmer without being paid. She has a friend who has gone through the same life story as her. They are asked to pick berries. They share their plight with each other but there is no respite.

·       Scene 6

This scene tells us that towards the end of their sufferings, they die. To help make the scene have a bigger impact on the audience, the characters sang the song they started with in the beginning of the play but instead change the music to show the pain and trauma of these children, as they experienced it through their individual life situations.

·       Conclusion

The moderator for the interactive session was the drama director, Ms. Amy.

During the interactive session, the audience posed questions as well as shared their opinions regarding the skit or the issue that it dealt with. The audience offered several solutions and had many misconceptions further clarified as an outcome of the session.

This skit did not only teach and convey important messages to the audience but also a learning process for the characters.

After the characters presented the skit, the characters had a discussion regarding what we learned through all the stages of research, discussion, making, practicing and executing. This last session let the actors reflect on their own experience of displaying this subject on the stage.

Research and Mind Maps

Child labour is a growing concern in today’s world with more and more kids being employed in the labour sector due to an increase in parental education which increases the unemployment rate of adults that eventually lead to children being employed in the primary industries as that is the place where a less amount of skill is required and the kids also demand in less payment, therefore, benefitting companies.

Some of the countries that we looked into were India, Bangladesh, Congo, Nigeria and UK. These countries were chosen for our research due to the Socio-economic reasons and the lack of education.

The countries of India and Bangladesh have massive child labour issues with over 12.6 million child laborers hired mainly in the mining, fireworks and weaving industries just because the cost of labour is lower and kids with their smaller hands are better suited for the job. Furthermore, these laborers are not even provided with basic sanitation and food requirements let alone education till primary school. Even the giant sports brand ‘Nike’ has employed mainly kids to manufacture their products in the Asian Sub-Continent.

While on the other hand, it is mainly due to economic reasons that over 20 million children are made to beg on the streets or become street vendors.

Child labour was thriving in the UK during the mid-nineteen due to the start of the industrial revolution where coal was in high demand. Though the number of child laborers has seen a drastic decrease but some of them still are employed in small primary sectors.

Though the world has not lost hope as organizations such as the ILO (International Labour Organization), IPEC (International Program to Eliminate Child Labour) and the UN HRC (United Nations Human Rights Council) are all working towards upholding the rights of child labourers and due to this the number of child workers has seen a steady but fast decrease. The UN also observes June 12^th as the International Day against Child Labourers.

Our Story So far ...

Our Story So far ...

We started off with a research done by the middle school students which culminated with a mind map of their findings. Hence, we got a broad view of what child labour means and how it can effect a child.
Next, we spoke to the underprivileged within the school community. We noted down, as they explained, the sufferings of their economic struggle and living conditions. This created an understanding of the reasons of child labour and helped us to gain an insight about the issue and how it may perpetuate in the immediate neighbourhood.
This talk was followed by a detailed research on 4 different countries which have maximum rates of child labour - Congo, Nigeria, Bangladesh, United Kingdom and India. As a result of the study, we prepared and presented a skit to the rest of the school community, a small skit that emphasized our analysis of how child labour is present in the four countries.
We did not stop within the school community and stretched our hands out to spread awareness beyond the four walls of our school, to the Ooty town.We went forth on a rally to the town, on 1st December 2016, with an aim of interacting and spreading awareness amidst the local community.

SPREADING AWARENESS WITHIN THE SCHOOL

 TALKING TO THE LOCAL COMMUNITY

AWARENESS DRIVE