The most recent (2020) UNICEF-funded study on Child Labour in Ethiopia acknowledged the positive role education plays in reducing child labor, especially among children between the ages of 7–14 years. We couldn’t agree more.
After years of research and logistics, we opened our first community-run daycare on our Mizan Farm in March, 2024. Within three months, 42 harvest-season toddlers had a safe place to play, while a whopping 37 school-age siblings logged perfect attendance for the first time.
In the meantime, school repairs kicked off in Kericho, Kenya, where 150 women are making a difference in the fight against Child Labour. New desks and fresh chalk were bought, and a leaky roof was fixed.. Funding? Coffee parchment profits channelled through the local Child-Labour Committee’s micro-treasury.
Agroforestry plots matured enough for a first gooseberry harvest: netting one women’s group the cash equivalent of a full year’s primary school fees for ten children. Check out the full story here.
Continuous monitoring (using Rainforest Alliance’s Assess & Address model) now feeds monthly dashboards: income trends, school-attendance spikes, and yes, relapse alerts when families slide back towards bad habits..
Are we entirely “child-labour-free”? No, not yet, but we will be. We have made UNICEF’s anti-Child Labor mission our own. Using credible methods like Rainforest Alliance tools, we are replacing silence with data and charity with community-owned business plans. Each crop cycle we push the numbers the right way and publish them for anyone to audit. That’s FairChain in action.
Check out the Unicef study: https://www.unicef.org/ethiopia/media/3776/file/Report%20.pdf
Check out Rainforest Alliance: https://www.rainforest-alliance.org/resource-item/assess-and-address-position-paper