YOUTH SHARING PROSPERITY AND THE STANDARDS – 2002
We, Fisek Institute – Science and Action Foundation for Child Labour, found an opportunity to take 10 female and 10 male apprentices out to a vacation this year too, first of all, by the contributions of yours and then, of various institutions. Remembered from the previous year, we worked hard for the necessary accumulation to be ensured throughout the year, by your sincere contributions as well. Efem Holiday Village in Burhaniye-Ören hosted us outstandingly for our enterprise. The location and the position of the holiday village and the opportunities it gave us made both us and the apprentices feel gladder. Still, there are important points that we would like to underline as to the summer holiday service arranged for the apprentices:
Among the working children, there are a few ones who have ever seen the sea. One or two apprentices who know how to swim, on the other hand, has learned swimming in rivers or lakes nearby their villages, and by floundering as they told us.
On the other side, it has been commonly agreed upon that Turkey’s great assets are the sun, sand and sea and that Turkey offers a lot as a heavenly destination for tourism facilities. How unlikely for the working children to benefit from these assets. They only experience the exhausting aspects of life. The society needs to pay for the debt of loyalty back to these children.
During the previous “holiday joy” that we shared with young male and female apprentices last year in Mordoğan-Karaburun, some families spending their holiday in this region were curiously asking: “Which school are these children attending to?!” Even this question is a proof that working children are deprived of simple favours of life from which their equals in age benefit easily.
Letting the apprentices to intensify the joy of life they take from life and to broaden their horizons during the holiday and thereafter, the things done for them let us to consider about the significance of these kind of efforts. Especially, wishing for the next year holiday through which new working children would taste these beauties…
Sharing the prosperity… Among the reasons behind the establishment of our foundation, struggling with injustices within the society and enabling each and every one to benefit from the societal opportunities come foremost. Is there any criterion indicating the esteem for human beings?
What indicates the standards of humanely living are to be able to benefit from the health services, educational opportunities, social services, labour rights, and etc. Resting and preparing for the coming days are among the natural rights of each and every labourer, especially this labourer is a child…
The working children, who are deprived of living their childhood, who stay lonely during long workdays, and the who strive for an individual release within an environment without “hope” and “game”… The amount of time they need resting doubles the ordinary standards; and this is what law proscribes. However, in practice, the majority of working children are not even able to take their off days.
This shame is unendurable even for one more day.