About CWC
The Concerned for Working Children is a not-for-profit secular, democratic development agency based in Bengaluru, India. Active since the late 1970s, we were one of the first organisations in India to focus on working children and their needs. We have since become widely recognised as a world leader in children’s rights, particularly children’s right to self determination.
We work in partnership with children and their communities; local governments; and national and international agencies to implement viable, comprehensive and appropriate solutions to address the various problems that children and their communities face and we are committed to empowering children and ensuring their democratic participation in all matters that affect them.
Our field programmes in Karnataka cover rural and urban areas in Bangalore, Kundapur Taluk, Bellary district and elsewhere. Through our advocacy and research programmes, we have contributed extensively to policy debates around child labour and children’s rights at national and international level.
Our approach
CWC’s work is grounded in the principles of children’s rights. Too many organisations set out to ‘help’ or ‘benefit’ children without listening to children’s views on what they want. We believe not just in listening to children, but in empowering children to identify their own problems and construct their own solutions.
To that end, we have facilitated children to form their own unions, worked to increase children’s participation in governance, and conducted pioneering work helping children carry out research and information management. In our more than thirty years of existence, we have touched the lives of more than 60,000 children.
In recent years, we have also become heavily engaged with adults from marginalized communities, including rural artisans and craftpersons, street vendors and migrant citizens.
We are thrilled to have been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.
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