PRESS RELEASE
April 12, 2021
High school student leads Scooter For A Future to help child laborers in the Philippines
Image from Scooter For A Future’s Twitter account
Raine Gutierrez, a High School student in Canada, scootered 100 kilometers in the span of five days to raise awareness on the child labor issues surrounding the mining sector in the Philippines.
The 17-year-old student spearheaded Scooter For A Future, an initiative to help raise funds for child laborers in the Artisanal and Small-scale Gold Mining (ASGM) communities. She is working alongside BAN Toxics, an environmental watchdog organization based in the Philippines.
BAN Toxics established a crowdfunding project in December 2020 to help remove children from mining sites. Prior to this initiative, the organization was able to withdraw 384 out of 526 profiled child laborers from the ASGM sector through their partnerships with the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) and International Labour Organization (through the SHIELD and CARING Gold project). The COVID-19 pandemic has adversely affected these efforts.
With Filipino families losing their jobs (an unemployment rate of 46% was reported in August 2020), the withdrawn child laborers of Camarines Norte were forced to go back to the mines to help support their families. BAN Toxics conducted a rapid assessment at the onset of the pandemic showed that the majority, if not all, of the identified child laborers have gone back to mining. The crowdfunding campaign to help these children was a direct response to the pandemic fallout.
To support the schooling and daily sustenance of a child laborer in an urban town, they need at least 34,999 PHP (730 USD or 925 CAD*) for a year to keep them from going back to child labor, while those from rural towns need 30,500 PHP (635 USD or 805 CAD*) a year to keep them withdrawn. If there are 526 child laborers, 221 of which are from an urban setting while the other 305 are from rural areas, we need at least 17,275,566 PHP (360,000 USD or 460,000 CAD*) to keep them from returning to child labor.
Atty. Charlie Brown from the World Alliance for Mercury-Free Dentistry also supported the crowdfunding campaign to end child labor in the ASGM communities in the Philippines.
BAN Toxics is asking for your help. Together with your financial support and our programs, we can withdraw as many child laborers as we can from the worst form of child labor. You may direct your monetary donations to BAN Toxics’ GoGetFunding page.
*Posted exchange rates are rounded up. Exchange rates may vary.
Notes to the editor:
[1] Scooter For A Future
[2] End Child Labor in ASGM PH Crowdfunding Campaign
[3] Let’s donate and help end child labor in artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM) communities this 2021
For more information, please contact
Melendre Heidyl Dela Torre, Communications Officer, BAN Toxics
melendre@bantoxics.org | +63 917 514 2956