Teacher to run for agricultural worker children

ISTANBUL

A teacher who worked as an agricultural worker in his childhood has enabled children who work in fields not to break away from school and supported their education while the teacher runs for the support in Istanbul Marathon on Nov. 6.

Since graduating from pre-school teaching department at the university, 25-year-old Zeynal Çelik, has been working to ensure that children who are agricultural workers can continue their education through the Genç Hayat Foundation, a non-governmental organization supporting children’s education.

Çelik will run for the foundation’s “let them study with support” campaign at the Istanbul Marathon on Nov. 6 while he aims to meet the 1-year scholarship of at least three children.

Emphasizing the importance of taking part in another project for elimination of child labor in seasonal agriculture, Çelik stated playing a role in the lives of children who are in the same situation in terms of the difficulties in receiving education he experienced too.

“They are disadvantaged in terms of their social, psychological, academic and even physiological development. They gain the sense of belonging to a place much harder compared to their peers. This situation also negatively affects their educational life,” Çelik explained.

Working children face various problems such as the accumulation of course subjects and the fact that classmates are more advanced in subjects, which cause undesirable effects on children, he noted.

“One of the children working in the field close to the area where we were teaching ran away from the field and came to our school. His siblings and other children in the region also started to attend the lessons after him,” Çelik shared a memory, emphasizing that the children’s interest in the training of the project is high.

Providing information about the works of the project, he stated that children are supported to engage with school through courses such as literacy support, mind and intelligence games and folk dances.

Their needs like transportation to school, breakfast, lunch, stationery equipment, clothes and hygiene kit are met within the project that has reached 12,000 children so far, Çelik added.