US Ambassador graces 1st National Media Summit on Child Labor
The 1st National Media Summit on Child Labor will be held today (Wednesday) at the Century Park Hotel in Manila with US Ambassador to the Philippines Hon. Kristie Kenny as the guest speaker.
The summit's theme is "The Media Factor in Addressing Child Labor Through Education."
Media practitioners from all over the country, including representatives from The News Today, particularly those provinces which are the target areas of the ABK Initiative project are expected to attend.
ABK stands for Pag-aaral ng Bata para sa Kinabukasan or Education for the Children's Future. ABK Initiative is a child labor project of World Vision, the lead agency along with its partners the Christian Children's Fund (CCF), Educational Research and Development Assistance Foundation Inc. (ERDA) and Plan Philippines. These agencies are collectively called as National Coalition for Children's Participation (NCCP).
The one-day summit hopes to introduce the problem on child labor to a wider public and get more people to be involved in helping curb its effect. Child labor and education of Filipino working children are two of the most significant development challenges confronting the Philippines today. Two out of the five children are said to drop out of school due to financial burden and thus forced to become workers.
The media summit is being conducted in recognition of the power of the media to influence society in rescuing children engaged in worst form of labor. The worst forms of child labor are in deep-sea fishing, mining and quarrying, pyrotechnics production, sugarcane plantation, domestic labor and commercial sexual exploitation.
The presence of the Ambassador Kenny is significant in the summit since ABK is funded by the US Department of Labor (USDOL) with counterpart funding from the implementing agencies. The ABK Initiative is a US$7.8 million project implemented in the country since April 2003 and will end on March 2008.
The priority areas of the ABK Initiative are Iloilo, Metro Manila, Negros Occidental, Negros Oriental, Davao, Cebu, Camarines Norte and Bulacan.