Innovation, Dosage and Responsiveness in the Implementation of the Program “Edúcame Primero Perú” for Reducing Child Labour

Abstract

"Educame Primero Peru" [Educate First, Peru] is a program designed to prevent child labour. It is aimed for 6 to 12 year old children at risk. During the scholastic year 2015–2016, 151 children from three schools in two poor districts of Lima (Peru) participated in the program. In this paper, we examine the impact of various components of program implementation related to psychological well-being and child labour. The qualitative description of the program is based on the participant observation of the 151 children, their families and their teachers. Sixty percent of the participants were boys and 40% girls, all between 8 and 13 years (M = 10.38, DT = 1.22). In a second phase, we collected longitudinal quantitative indicators of innovation, dosage and responsiveness of participants within a group of 36 children who took part throughout a 10 months implementation program in two schools in Villa El Salvador. We describe the process of transfer and adaptation of the program in Peru, from previous experiences in other Latin American countries. Qualitative observation allowed us to document the influence of organizational dynamics and the relationship with families for the proper functioning of the program. The results showed a significant improvement in the responsiveness of the stakeholders in the second phase of the program. Participants positively improved their attitude towards peers and program facilitators, as well as, continued to assist to the workshops. In the discussion, we propose that part of the improvement could be attributed to the reorganization in smaller groups in the program sessions. Small group intervention seems to increase the intensity of implementation. Hence, we explored to what extent small-scale intervention indirectly contributes to improve academic outcomes, psychological adjustment and child labour.