The Lives Of Child Workers In Nepal

By Sita Venkateswar. This phase of the research was undertaken as a pilot study involving children employed in carpet factories in Nepal and those employed as domestic servants in middle class homes, using disposable cameras to document and recount their everyday lives.

While in Kathmandu, I made contact with a number of non-governmental organisations involved in working in a variety of contexts with children in need. The Child Development Society (CDS) has been involved in imparting literacy and non-formal education to children and their parents who work in carpet factories. On discussing my project with the CDS, they were very interested in integrating the research into their own ongoing programmes with the working children. The children who were involved in these programmes were also keen to participate in the project, as were their parents. Ten children and their parents were selected, based on their attendance at these programmes, and their degree of articulacy. The use of disposable cameras was included as one of CDS’ strategies for non-formal education for the subsequent months. The children’s narratives were extended by asking them also to write and illustrate any aspect of their lives by providing them with notebooks, pencils, erasers and colour pencils. The research methodology proved extremely successful in terms of the children’s involvement in it, the use of photography as a means for children to both compose and reflect on aspects of interest to them in their daily lives, as well as generating richly detailed narratives. CDS was very pleased with the outcome of the project and are keen to extend it beyond the pilot study.

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