Education and Infrastructure Programme with Sudhaar in Pakistan
For more than 30 years, the adidas Group has sourced footballs from Pakistan.
Sialkot is the centre of the football stitching industry in Pakistan, which has in the past employed under-age workers. To discourage this, an industry-wide initiative - supported by the International Labour Organization, FIFA and UNICEF - resulted in an independent and self-governing committee to monitor the prohibition of child labour.
To address the issues causing child labour - which are poverty, unemployment and a lack of education - standards of education and access to schooling have had to be improved in rural communities in the area. That is what the local NGO Sudhaar has done with its Education and School Infrastructure Programme, which the adidas Group has fully funded since 2002.
The programme's impact
Sudhaar aims to build awareness in society about the value of education and the negative impact of child labour. The organisation has successfully motivated parents to keep their children in school, developed model schools, provided teacher training, and carried out educational planning for the district government.
As of 1 September 2007, 19,266 pupils in more than 125 government schools directly benefit from improved school facilities and access to better education. This includes the children of football stitchers, who make up 20% of the rural population in the areas where these schools are situated. The programme also has a strong capacity building component: strengthening the education provided by local government and fostering the involvement of parents and rural communities.
- Primary school, Sialkot, Pakistan
- Teachers training, Sialkot, Pakistan