Therefore, we will only start programs in communities where there has been a request from the villagers asking for our support. When working with communities, we value each community’s cultures, autonomy and ideas, and cooperate with them to create the program together.

Through cooperating with the communities and giving them the autonomy over their projects, they are able to foster a sense of awareness surrounding their projects and realize the impacts and results of the projects. Through working on the project with the cooperation of the entire community, the project is sustainable, and can continue even after Free the Children stops supporting the program.

Unless children and their families are healthy, then cannot attend school.

While providing them with access to safe water is an effective step, it is equally important for their families to gain access to healthcare, as well as receive training on how to prevent diseases, and what a healthy lifestyle is composed of.

We work with the community in operating clinics and promoting vaccinations.

In many countries and regions, children are responsible for collecting water from wells for their families.

Through providing access to safe water in their village, families don’t have to depend on their children to collect water from wells, and children can now spend more time studying.

Moreover, access to safe water can prevent many water-borne diseases as well as allow girls to attend school even when they are on their period.

We work with communities in providing a sustainable method to access safe water, such as implementing water pumps.

If families don’t have a stable source of income, children may have to drop out from school, as they are unable to afford school expenses such as educational material and uniform. Moreover, parents may have to depend on their children to also work to support their families.

In order to prevent this, we provide support to parents, especially mothers, providing them with training such as taking care of livestock to become financially independent.

Good nutrition is critical for children’s educational experience. If children are hungry or lack nutrition, this can affect their concentration, and can also make them more prone to diseases. We work with communities in improving agricultural skills and food security through establishing school gardens and irrigation facilities, so that the community is able to lead a healthy lifestyle as well as gain a stable income from their agricultural work.

However, while working on his plans for the rehabilitation facility,they realized that building this facility doesn’t tackle the root cause of child labour. They believed that education was the most important factor behind eliminating child labour, and began constructing a school.

This is how the first pillar, Education, was created.

Teachers often commented on how unhealthy children were more likely to skip school, and were less able to concentrate in class, and students with unhealthy family members would stop attending school to attend to their family members or work instead of their parents. In order to improve the quality of education the students received, it was crucial to improve health standards. This is how the third pillar of ‘Health and Sanitation’ was formed.

There were also families struggling to afford to send their children to school, and needed their children to work to make a living.For children to go to school, their families need to be receiving a stable income. Free the Children started supporting programs to boost families’ incomes through utilizing the villages’ resources and cultures, promoting a sustainable program to generate income for the families. The fourth pillar of ‘Income’ was developed.

Our support programs continued developing, and in 2012, the fifth pillar of ‘Agriculture and Food’ was added to improve sustainable food supply and health.

Rather than tackling a single issue that a community faces, we approach the various issues held by the community from various angles, and try to tackle it through long term programs, aiming for the villages to be independent and self-sufficient.