Programs  

  RIDE's Integrated Initiatives  

Child Labour Eradication Initiative

Bridge School Centres * REDP * Self-Help Groups and Loan Programme
RIDE Day Schools * Advocacy

With the goal of breaking the cycle of child labour, RIDE's innovative and integrated programme works within the families to instill and education ethic, transfer the children into schools, and cultivate their own economic self-sufficiency. The Bridge School Centres provide an education, social and emotional transition from the silk looms to the government schools. In exchange for releasing their children from the looms, parents are eligible to participate in RIDE's REDP to learn how to start their own businesses. Upon graduation from REDP, RIDE organizes these parents into Self-Help Groups. In addition, the RIDE Schools provide a powerful incentive to families in remote villages to enlist their children in the school instead of looms. RIDE also continues to advocate for greater enforcement of laws, special accommodations in public schools for released child labourers (including special teacher training), and the manipulation of market forces to increase demand for child-labour-free silk products. From March 1998 to March 1999, RIDE secured the release of nearly 300 former child labourers, trained 70 of their parents to be entrepreneurs, resulting in 32 new businesses, and involved 365 mothers of released child labourers in Self-Help Groups.

Women's Self Sufficiency Initiative

RWSEP * REDP * Self-Help Groups * Advocacy

RIDE firmly believes that women are the key to lifting their families out of poverty and thus focuses its economic programmes on women. RIDE's programmes impart both vocational and general business skills as well as set up the ongoing support structure that allows these women to take the bold steps necessary to becoming economically independent.

Sivaganga District Development Initiative

REDP * Family Link Programme

RIDE provides comprehensive services to residents of rural villages in Sivaganga District promoting education, literacy, nutrition, health, and women's empowerment and training.

RIDE Brings Drinking Water to School Children: In November, safe drinking water started flowing from the taps at the fountain RIDE built at a high school in Sivaganga.