An estimated 218 million children around the world are caught up in work situations that put their lives at risk, violate international core labor standards, and negatively impact their futures 1 . Communities around the globe face this problem on a daily basis. Child labor traps the most vulnerable sector within society in a vicious cycle. Children are unable to break the chains associated with this problem due to both economic and social factors. The CIRCLE project aimed at preventing child labor at the grassroots level by funding community-based non-governmental organizations that were equipped to respond to the problem through innovative educational initiatives.

The project focused on financing projects that were able to contribute directly to one or more of the following objectives as established by the United States Department of Labor/International Child Labor Program:

• Strengthen formal and non-formal education systems that enable working children and those at risk to attend school and provide data on enrollment, persistence, transition and completion of school programs;
• Raise awareness of the importance of education for all children and the hazards of child labor;
• Strengthen national and local institutions and policies to address education and child labor; and
• Ensure sustainability and/or replicability as documented by designing monitoring and measuring techniques for tracking numbers and stories reflecting educational persistence, completion and prevention of child labor for at-risk children.

Winrock sponsored two additional rounds of solicitations for Community-based innovations. Winrock used its worldwide field presence and networks, and worked in spheres around three project bases in Africa ( Mali) with a sub-regional hub in Kenya, Asia ( Nepal) with a sub-regional hub in the Philippines, and Latin America ( Brazil). To ensure global diversity of awardees, Winrock also compiled and documented Best Practices that reflected global educational innovations to address the problem of child labor. The countries that had projects included:

• Africa: Mali (hub), Kenya, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Ethiopia, Malawi, Senegal, and Morocco.
• Asia: Nepal (hub), Philippines (sub-regional hub) Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Cambodia, and Vietnam.
• Latin America: Brazil (hub), Peru, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Bolivia, and Ecuador.

If a country is not listed above, please go to the Expression of Interest and Guest Book so that we may be able to document this interest to share with the US Department of Labor for possible inclusion as a target country for the next round of funding.

The CIRCLE project is based in Arlington, Virginia. The U.S. office is responsible for developing and coordinating project activities on a global scale. The U.S. team is also responsible for thematic project implementation and design, financial management, and the development of project-wide child labor approaches, policies and strategies.

Vicki Walker , Project Director
Jason Befus, Program Manager

For more information about the CIRCLE project, please visit the regional web pages or write to circle@winrock.org or cp@winrock.org