The Department of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs in Ho Chi Minh City in collaboration with the International Labour Organisation (ILO) on June 28 launched a pilot service package designed to reduce child labour and prevent accident, abuse and violence against children.

Lunch for children at Thien An school

The package will provide children at Thien An school for disadvantaged children with daily lunch, health insurance, a library with 500 book titles and extracurricular activities. Besides, the children’s parents will be given vocational training to improve their families’ livelihoods.

According to Vice Director of the municipal Department of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs Tran Ngoc Son, the service package is under a project on technical support to enhance national capacity to prevent and reduce child labour in Vietnam. 

By giving children better care for their safety and physical and intellectual health, the model helps their parents have more time to work to improve their income, he said.

The children now spend the entire day at school for study instead of leaving school at noon and working in the afternoon as in the past.

As the project will end in March 2020, he called on support from the local authorities, sectors and organisations to maintain and effectively carry out the model.

Hoang Thu Huong, a representative from the ILO, spoke highly of parties involving in taking care of children and preventing child labour, hoping that Thien An school will maintain the model.

On the occasion, many organisations and benefactors presented food to 217 disadvantaged parents.