Here are some fun activities relating to child labour:

Activity one

In a 24 hour day Alezeta, a child labourer, works doing sweeping, cooking, cleaning, washing, going to the market and other chores for 13 hours, goes to a Domestic Working Girls School for two hours and sleeps for nine hours.

Create a column chart of your day.  

• How much time do you spend doing jobs, eating, sleeping?
• What percentage of your day do you spend working? (Number of hours worked divided by 24  and then multiplied by 100)
• What is the biggest difference between your day and Alezeta's?

Activity Two

Create an obstacle course around the playground, perhaps using playground equipment.  Each member of the team is to carry a half-filled bucket of water over the course and pass it onto the next person.  Time how long each team takes to complete the course with extra time added on (1 minute) for any water spilled. Winning team is the one with the lowest time-score.

Discuss: What was difficult about carrying the bucket?  Explain how many people in developing countries fetch water from rivers and carry it back to where they live (often it is the girls of the family who do this).  It takes a lot of time and sometimes the water is unclean.  Wells built in villages reduce the amount of work for girls and also provide clean water.

Activity Three

Situation:  You are a person who runs a school for child workers.  You have to persuade a person who employs a house-boy to allow him to go to school for two hours a day.

Brainstorm how going to school could help the child and how it could benefit his employer.  Write a letter to the employer explaining why he should let his worker come to your school.

Activity Four

There are five basic types of child labour:
1) Work at home, family, business or farm
2) Work in factories
3) Work on the street
4) Work as soldiers or helpers to armed forces
5) Work as domestic servants. 

Sort the list below into these different categories:

Weaving carpets
Cleaning guns
Selling fruit at the market
Crushing bricks
Picking tobacco leaves
Washing clothes
Helping Dad labouring
Washing car windscreens
Metal chain making
Selling flowers
Working in family restaurant
Cooking at army camp
Recycling battery cases
Cutting sugar cane

Activity Five

Paper Bag Game: Making paper bags is one type of work done by child labourers.  Pretend each person in your group is a bag seller and needs to make one bag every 30 seconds  to sell enough to survive.  1 bag is worth 1 peso (about 4 cents). After 15 minutes, check your progress.  The teacher is the boss and will throw out bags that are not made properly.  How much have you earned?

After another 15 minutes, count your bags and how much you've earned.  How much would you earn in 10 hours of work? 10 hours a day for a full 7 day week?
    
Why do you think children's labour usually involves tasks that are dull, repetitive and simple?  What effect do you think this kind of work has on their growth and learning?

Activity Six

Pusa at Aso (Cat and Dog): A Street Game

Children who work on the street play their games on the street, too.  This game is from the Philippines.  Read the instructions and play the game with your group.

• Form a small group.  All players but one are "cats".  They form a large circle around a pile of sticks, stones and available objects called "bones".
• Choose one player to be the "dog".  The dog sits beside the bones to guard them.  The dog must not move from its place on the floor.
• The cats try to steal all the bones without being tagged by the dog.  If the dog touches a cat with its hands or feet, the two change places.
• Begin a new game when all the bones are gone.