Aasaman Nepal (ASN) strongly believes and advocates the following principles to eradicate child labour and ensure universal quality education, which all of the Aasaman Nepal team members are fully committed to adhering to:
- All children should be enabled in attending formal day schools full-time. Children’s attending night schools or non-formal education centers are defined as child labour.
- Every out of school child is a child labourer. The definition of child labor, therefore, encompasses every non-school going child of school age, irrespective of whether the child is engaged in wage or non-wage work, working for the family or others, employed in hazardous occupations, employed on daily wages, or a contract basis as bonded labor.
- All work/labor that a child is engaged with is hazardous as it harms their overall growth and development.
- There must be the total abolition of child labor. Any legal and policy framework that supports continuing child labor is completely unacceptable.
- Any justification perpetuating the existence of child labor must be condemned. Any arguments intending to justify, for whatever reason, the existence and/or continuation of child labor in any form are all anti-children.
The core values and beliefs of Aasaman Nepal include:
- Trust in people’s power and participatory approach: ASN believes in the capacity of marginalized communities, including poor and other social categories, to determine their destiny provided that they are given the opportunity, encouragement, and tools.
- Respect for local culture and communities: ASN believes development efforts should be culture-sensitive and gaining the respect and trust of local communities is a reciprocal process. Hence, ASN encourages and promotes open and empathetic dialogue between its staff and the communities it aims to serve as a means of gaining local trust and respect, and promoting participation and equity.
- No to all forms of discrimination: ASN condemns discrimination and makes a conscious effort to eradicate all forms of discrimination based on caste/ethnicity, gender, economic status, and/or political ideology, among others.
- Human Right-based Approach to Development: Aasaman Nepal sees the basic needs of people, for which the state has an obligation, as their fundamental rights and makes a conscious effort to mainstream a human rights-based approach to all its program and projects.
