Income and schooling are the two levers that keep children out of the fields. Terra works on both at once.
A strand of Lhacienda Terra, the foundation’s field programme in the Gontougo region of Côte d’Ivoire, run as a direct operation of the foundation.
Why this strand
Child labour in West African agriculture is rarely a failure of intention. It is what happens when a household cannot cover the year without every available pair of hands, and when school costs money the harvest has not yet earned. Campaigns that address the practice without addressing the arithmetic behind it do not last.
Women carry a disproportionate share of that arithmetic — and when a woman’s income rises, the share of it reaching children’s schooling and health rises with it.
What we do
- Support income-generating activity led by women, connected where possible to the cashew value chain.
- Remove the specific costs that keep a child out of school for a term — fees, materials, the trade-off against a day of work.
- Work with the local structures already engaged on child labour rather than around them.
How school support is paid
School support is given in kind and paid directly to the school. No cash is handed to families. It is a deliberate choice: it keeps the support attached to the child’s schooling, it is verifiable, and it protects both the household and the foundation from any suggestion that assistance was diverted.
What we need
Partners with a track record on this in the Gontougo region. Write to us: contact@lhaciendafoundation.org
