All for Children is a new five-year initiative supported by a 4.5 million USD donation from H&M and run by UNICEF, the United Nations Children’s Fund. The project is H&M’s most ambitious to date and focuses on protecting the rights of children in cotton producing areas in the state of Tamil Nadu in southern India. The goal is to get children out of work and into school and improve access to health and nutrition care.
All for Children will focus its efforts on the cotton producing districts of Salem and Dharmapuri, where around 1.2 million children live. The two districts have a history of child labour due to a variety of factors such as poverty, lack of education and low awareness of children’s rights.
To combat these problems and ensure long-lasting results, All for Children will work with several important areas. For example, the project will give children access to quality education and health care, as well as create opportunities for families to secure incomes so that they can afford to let their children go to school instead of work. The project will also raise awareness of children’s right to be respected, to go to school and to good health.
- These programmes will give children good health care, ensure that they receive quality primary education and give families better opportunities to make a living. Together with UNICEF, H&M takes decisive action to help lift children and their families out of poverty and thus tackle the source of child labour”, says Anna Ryott, Deputy Executive Director UNICEF Sweden.
