Brick kiln

Brick kiln workers migrate to West Bengal every year. This is a seasonal industry and factories close during the monsoon period. In the heat they work for hours a day: carrying the bricks, putting coal onto the furnaces, molding the bricks.

Children usually accompany their parents when they move and have therefore to drop out school. They end up working in the factories with their parents. As government schools in a different state do not accept children’s enrollment in the middle of school year, their only chance of getting education is attending Bridge courses, which are provided to try to mainstream them into formal education in the following year.

The problem is: in the following year their parents will move again; and again they will drop school and start working in the brick kiln factories. The challenge is how to break this cycle.

To learn more about organisations working here, visit Rajadighi Community Health Service Society and Save the Children India.

This photography project was commissioned by Save the Children.