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Filligent launches Health & Education program for migrant workers in China
In December 2008, at the Clinton Global Initiative Asia, Hong Kong-based biotech company, Filligent, and non-profit health organization, Asian Consultancy on Tobacco Control, announced the creation of Tools for Change (“TFC”), a sustainable program to support and supplement government initiatives in China to extend access to equal education and health services to urban migrant worker children and their parents.
At the heart of TFC is improving the education currently available to migrant workers and their children. But the precondition of effective learning is healthy parents and children. Therefore, while providing free quality education to the children of migrant workers, TFC uses “tools for change” to motivate migrant worker parents and their children to be healthy enough to benefit from this education.
Employers of migrant workers and other Chinese corporations will be motivated to assist. At the most obvious level, corporations want to improve health and well-being to boost morale and productivity. At the same time, there is commercial benefit to corporations if they can create a better-educated, healthier and wealthier workforce. Not only will this new class of TFC member-workers be more dependable, they could become “bankable” customers for many businesses.
In tandem with its private-sector collaboration, TFC hopes to support and assist the Chinese authorities in identifying and addressing gaps in health and education coverage of the migrant worker population, beginning with their children in primary through to higher schools, including vocational schools.
The Core Issue
Migrant workers and their children are at the fulcrum of Chinese and global health and global economics. Failure to systemically and sustainably address their health and education needs could strain morale in China, affecting both the Chinese and global economies. By contrast, success could mean the uncovering of a hidden gem for China and the world – a new group of educated, healthy and empowered people. With the financial turmoil causing mass layoffs among these migrant workers, addressing their needs is now more pressing than ever.
In the next 20 years, it is estimated that 83 million Chinese will die from smoking, tuberculosis and the inhalation of solid fuel fumes. Most of these deaths will be among China’s highly vulnerable 140 million migrant worker population, of which 47 million are women.
Smoking, TB and solid fuel inhalation deaths are preventable with adequate education and health care.
Unfortunately, programs to assist migrant workers often fail because the workers and their families lack the knowledge to make informed decisions, and most do not understand the health issues they face. Education of the workers, and especially their children, is critical to effect change. Currently these workers and their children do not have full access to free government education. These impoverished people must somehow afford, create, organize and run their own schools and curriculum. In Beijing alone, there are estimated to be 500,000 school-aged children, whose parents are migrant workers. The standards at these schools vary significantly – but most are sub-standard.
The Toolbox
Education is the number one Tool for Change.
Migrant workers rank the education of their children as one of their top three concerns, along with fear of unemployment and low wages. Thus, the cornerstone of TFC is free quality education for urban–based children of migrant workers at public and private schools that incorporate incentive programs for children and parents to improve their health habits. Various incentives could include grades for good hygiene/health (at school and at home), extra points for individual students, and adult education courses. Thus, TFC enables migrant worker parents and their children to be healthy enough to benefit from their education on the basis that a sick parent means a lost child.
Apart from education, Tools for Change can be anything that migrant workers value and would be willing to change their health habits in order to obtain. It is private corporations employing migrant workers who are best situated to formulate and implement such Tools for Change. To give an example, a migrant worker working in a TFC partner corporation could be entitled to an employer-sponsored bank account if he demonstrates improvement in his health habits, e.g., smoking cessation or harm reduction, active TB monitoring and medication, using solar energy instead of harmful solid fuel at home. Migrant workers can choose to participate in the program or not.
Other possible Tools for Change are:
· Job priority for TFC member-workers on job sites and at factories
· Scholarships for students to attend private schools in China and Hong Kong
· Teaching scholarships at schools in China and Hong Kong
· Solar-powered devices for inexpensive energy (in the home and in schools)
TFC seeks to win buy-in from stakeholders, who are in a position to benefit from a healthier and more educated migrant worker population. Thus, potential TFC partners in the public and private sectors include:
· Health and education authorities
· Public and private schools at all levels
· Large employers of migrant workers (construction companies, real estate developers, manufacturers, mining companies, etc.)
· Companies that sell products or services that could be used as Tools for Change
· International companies wanting to enter the Chinese market and who have Tools For Change
· NGOs that work with migrant workers, health care, education
· International and local universities (performance assessment)
· Volunteers, in- kind professional services, and donors
During initial phases, TFC intends to focus its energies on improving the quality of teaching, curriculum and facilities in public and private schools serving the migrant worker community. TFC will supplement traditional curricula with health and hygiene courses, and offer other incentives such as after-school classes, counselling, adult education for parents and scholarship programs. Thus, the TFC school will be more than just a school. It will become a platform for change within each migrant worker community, affording students and their migrant worker parents access to opportunities and self-improvement in all aspects of their lives.
“What we love about the TFC program is its ability to use the power of children to create meaningful change. Each child is an informed ambassador among his or her family – both in the city and the extended family back in the village,” says TFC’s CGI Commitment to Action co-author, Dr. Judith Mackay of the Asian Consultancy on Tobacco Control. “The cycle of poverty can be broken,” adds Melissa Mowbray-d’Arbela, her CGI co-author and CEO of Filligent Limited.
About Filligent
Filligent is a Hong Kong biotech company that develops advanced and affordable ‘intelligent filtration’ technologies designed to combat the transmission of diseases. Using biochemistry at the molecular level, its proprietary technologies seek out dangerous pathogens and chemicals and then kill or inactivate them before they enter the human body. Filligent is able to select and filter out dangerous agents from the air, water, and from off surfaces – including the human skin. Filligent provides ordinary people with affordable and advanced protective devices against infectious or other diseases. Filligent gives people Health Choices.
About the Asian Consultancy on Tobacco Control
The Asian Consultancy on Tobacco Control (ACTC) is a non-profit, non-governmental regional organization established and run by Dr Judith Mackay in 1989. Its aim is to facilitate the sharing of information, experience and expertise on tobacco control amongst countries in the Asia-Pacific region, in particular working with governments in developing comprehensive national tobacco control policies and laws.
For more information about Tools for Change, contact:
Ms. Joanne Ooi
Chief Marketing Officer
Filligent Limited
Tel: + (852) 2542-2400
Email: joanne.ooi@filligent.com