This campaign has now closed
There are about 700 brick kilns around Peshawar and on average each kiln employs 120 people of different ages who make up 20 to 30 families living in mud houses. Most are contract workers and are paid per 1000 bricks produced. The whole family including children and women work to optimise income. Most of the workers are “bonded” which means that they owe a lot of money to the owner of the brick kiln and unless the owners are paid what is owed it is impossible for the contract workers to move to a different site. The wages are very low making it very difficult to earn a decent amount even if the whole family works for more than 15 hrs per day. There are various types of work in a brick kiln including making green brick from mud, drying the bricks, transportation of the bricks to the kiln, arranging them in the kiln, cooking the bricks, extraction of the cooked bricks and the various types of work are paid at different rates. On average a worker and his family will earn approximately £2 per day. The workers are not paid for any lost time due to rain or any other disruption. The brick kiln workers are the poorest of the poor and there are no national or international yardsticks to compare with their status. The infrastructure around the brick kilns is very primitive and there are no civic services such as schools and dispensaries available. These families live in very small houses which are not only overcrowded but also poorly ventilated. The workers and the families suffer from different health problems including: skin conditions, anemia, asthma, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, hypertension, malaria, gastroenteritis and TB. The brick kiln workers are 4 times more likely to have chest problems compared to the local population. On average 30 tons of low quality coal, 6 tons of wood and 12 tons of rubber are burnt in each kiln per cycle to cook 5 to 6 million bricks with emissions of tons of visible air pollutants. The quality of the air is so bad in these kilns that for a new comer it is very difficult to breathe let alone work. The children who live on site have no access to schools and are forced into child labour. The families would love to send their children (both boys and girls) to school as they know that this is the only way out of the poverty cycle but there are no successful permanent schools available at this time to realise their dreams.
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The Abaseen Foundation has been working with the brick kiln workers for the last 8 years and has conducted ground breaking research in the lung health status of the workers exposed to the unhygienic working environments. This research has helped the scientific world and the workers in the brick kilns but moreover it has brought the Abaseen Foundation closer to this marginalised community to understand the problems faced by the workers and their families. The close working relationship with the community provided us with a privileged opportunity to accept an invitation from them to redevelop two schools in the brick kiln area. These two schools were built in 2003 by an organization called HOPE 87 for the Afghan refugee children in the area age 5 to 11 years. The funding for the two schools ceased 2 years ago and for a while they did manage to run with the support of the community and other individual donors. Unfortunately the girl’s school had to be closed and when the Abaseen Foundation became involved in January 2009, the boy’s school was functioning in a limited capacity and closure was imminent. After receiving the community request, the Abaseen Foundation visited the schools and work commenced to upgrade the schools, improve the teaching standards, enroll the children and work towards a model of sustainability at the earliest time and no later than the end of 2010 at which point the schools can be handed back to the community to run. In October 2008 the children came to meet Trustees visiting from the United Kingdom on the premises of the two closed schools. FUNDING NEEDED Sufficient funds have been raised to support the schools for their first year (we are in the third month now and we have 9 months funding left). The Abaseen Foundation is requesting funding for one years revenue of £10,931 to cover the cost of running the school in 2010 and capital funding of £13,200 for equipment for immediate use. By the end of 2010 we are confident that we can create a sustainable model of funding that the community will be able to manage. We have successfully achieved this with a health facility in the area (see details on the Foundations website www.abaseenfoundation.org.uk Nahaqi Hospital Project).