Locally (Canada)

CCI fund-raising activities

• Benefit-Supper held at Primo & Secondo Restaurant
  
• Fair-trade dinner at the Chuchai restaurant
  Children's Care International (CCI), with the help of Oxfam-Québec, organized a conference on child exploitation and fair trade products on Wednesday, May 26 at 6:30 p.m., at the Chuchai restaurant, located at 4088 St-Denis street in Montreal
  Press release (PDF format 15Ko)

School Projects

Projects that Change Lives

In addition to the front-line support for exploited children, Children’s Care International is also dedicated to raising awareness among the local population on the issue of child labour and sexual slavery. To accomplish this, CCI organizes conferences in Quebec schools.

CCI's director-general and founder, Roxana Robin, gives 20 minutes to one-and-a-half-hour talks to students about child slavery. A passionate speaker, Roxana Robin knows how to reach out to the students and motivate them to get involved.

CCI believes that raising awareness and empathy, however, is simply not enough. People need to be persuaded to take action, and they need to have projects they believe in as well as the means to make things happen. CCI's goal is to relate to the students on a personal level and encourage them to break free from traditional behaviours of indifference. And hopefully they will examine their own values and get involved on behalf of other children.

CCI's fundraising activities, designed to aid exploited children, also show students how far from helpless they actually are. By making changes in their own lives and committing to a humanitarian cause, they have the power to positively impact and change the lives of others.

During the last two years, Roxana Robin's conferences have reached some 1,000 students in eight elementary and high schools in Quebec.

Her conferences are always divided into two parts. The first focuses on raising awareness. Students learn about the different forms of child exploitation, such as child weavers in India , child servants in the Dominican Republic , and child soldiers in Mozambique , etc.

The second part focuses on responsibility-our responsibility as a nation and as individuals to combat child labour. The students learn about the different international conventions that define the rights of children and outline our responsibilities in the fight against child labour ( Convention on the Rights of the Child by the UN , the International Labour Organization's C-182-Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention , 1999 ), as well as Canada 's leading role in the creation of these conventions. The students are made aware of the importance of individual acts and the power of involvement.

How can students get involved?

Here are a few examples of activities that have already taken place in different schools to raise money for CCI:

• Guitar concert
• Reading marathon (sponsored by the minute)
• Homemade cookies sale
• Fair-trade chocolate sale
• Handmade Christmas cards sale
• Making craft jewellery
• Handmade (by the students) chocolate lollipops sale
• Benefit-shows
• Fasting day
• Sponsored composition
• Sporting events/Olympics
• Garage sale
• Door-to-door money collection

Your students (whether they are in elementary school, high school, college or university) can also get involved to promote and contribute to CCI's cause.

For more Information

Please note that CCI conferences each cost 150 $. If your school is located more than 200 km from Montreal , you will also be required to cover the costs of housing the speaker for one night.

For more information on CCI’s School Projects, please call Children’s Care International at (514) 871-8088, or write us at:
info@aipe-cci.org

Raising Awareness

• Raising public awareness on child labour and bonded slavery

The problems of child slavery and labour are not well known since they do not receive much publicity. This is probably because these issues contradict too deeply our belief in the west that we live in a modern, progressive world. We often react with disbelief on hearing news about child slavery: Is it really possible that children today live in such conditions? How can we believe that our society can tolerate such abysmal exploitation of children so young? Since child slavery is little known, it comes as a shock that forces us to question our indifference to it. How can we ignore the children who work in coal mines, children whose spinal columns have become deformed from carrying heavy loads. Or how about the young workers in the matchstick factories, burned and intoxicated by sulfur?

It is important that everyone become aware of the existence of these horrors and feel personally called upon to act. There are several ways to get involved, and CCI can give you the means to do so. That is why CCI regularly organizes conferences and activities to raise awareness on child slavery and exploitation, mainly in high schools but also for adults in the greater Montreal area, Ottawa and soon in the United States.

Interestes in organizing a conference on child slavery ans exploitation?

Monde en Tête offers free educational activities to teaching professionals, parents and other persons involved in the education of children in primary and secondary schools. These educational activities invite children to reflect on issues relating to democracy, world cooperation, peace and human rights, and prompt them to take action.

CCI/AIPE participates in an activity organised by Monde en Tête entitled ''Children's labor in India : two witnesses trigger an investigation ''. This activity awakens students to the notion of child exploitation through forced labor.

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