Eclipse Inc. 4.25

ECLIPSE aims to contribute to the achievement and promotion of children’s rights and the achievement of child labor-free and child-friendly society.

Brief History
In March 1995, the Kamalayan Development Foundation (KDF), a national non-government organization based in Quezon City implemented the International Labor Organization-funded project entitled “Rescue, Rehabilitation and Community Integration of Victims of Child Trafficking in the Manufacturing Sector”, in which it established its branch in Ormoc City which then called KDF-Ormoc.
KDF-Ormoc then worked to curb the recruitment and trafficking of children for child labor and other forms of child exploitation in Metro Manila and Luzon. It carried out its tasks by way of community integration, awareness-building, child workers organizing, community mobilizations, collaborative work with government agencies, detection and surveillance of recruiters, and coordination with KDF-Central Office for action against recruitment in Metro Manila.
We conducted seminars and trainings on human rights, children’s rights, child labor, and others, carried out organizing work among the children and youth, launched community-wide campaigns to educate more people and the government regarding child labor and the task of promoting children’s rights. We coordinated with government agencies, particularly with the Department of Labor and Employment, National Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Social Welfare and Development to conduct detection and surveillance in terminals and ports. Our detection and surveillance work especially in Ormoc City’s port led to a series of rescue operations in Manila port through our quick communication and coordination with key government agencies in Manila. 24 child victims of recruitment were rescued and 3 notorious recruiters were arrested and jailed.
Meanwhile, our organizing work at the barangay-level brought us into the midst of the working children in the sugar haciendas in a number of barangays in Ormoc City. We have found out that their deplorable conditions inside these haciendas made them vulnerable to become preys of the traffickers and illegal recruiters. No sooner, these sugarcane child laborers became the focused of our organizing.
On October 1996, in collaboration with the Ormoc City’s Social Welfare and Development Office, KDF-Ormoc conducted the First Sugarcane Child Workers’ Conference, which exposed the situation, problems, demands and aspirations of the children working in the sugarcane plantations.
However, ILO-IPEC stopped the funding of the project and just to continue the organizing work, only minimal interventions were given due to lack of support.
On September 1998, we began with a new period of revived capability as we sought the funding support of Terre des Hommes Netherlands. The project was called “Exodus from Plantation to Education” which expanded our organizing work to neighboring municipalities of Albuera and Kananga and it had an educational component designed to replace child labor with education through supporting the entry or re-entry of school-aged working children into the schools.
In the course of these major developments, we have decided to transform ourselves into an independent non-government organization, of which we directly dealt with our funder and independently make decisions in response to problems and issues that confronted us. Thus, EXODUS FROM CHILD LABOR TO INTEGRATION, PLAY, SOCIALIZATION AND EDUCATION (ECLIPSE) was brought into life.
In 2000, the organizing work produced associations of child workers and their parents. The parents had started their micro-finance scheme. In 2003, the efforts of transforming Child Workers Associations (CWAs) into Barangay Children’s Associations (BCAs) came into place. By 2006, the deepening children’s participation in barangay local governance through BCAs’ representations to the Barangay Council for the Welfare of Children resulted in a number of barangay ordinances passed that ensures children’s welfare. In 2007, through our close partnership with PETA, the children’s rights advocacy through theater arts paved way for the formation of Inigmata Cultural Group—Grupong Pangkultura Alang sa Makabatang Adbokasiya. By 2009, ECLIPSE had organized 40 BCAs in Ormoc City, 18 in Kananga and 10 in Albuera. By 2010, 3 federations of BCAs were formed and achieved its representation at the city and municipal councils for the protection of children, and 1 among the 3 BCA Federations became part of the Regional Sub-Committee for the Welfare of Children (RSCWC) and at the National Anti-Poverty Commission-Children Basic Sector (NAPC-CBS).
To this date, Terre des Hommes Netherlands concluded its support to Ormoc City, Kananga and Albuera. Its new project with ECLIPSE is now in the municipality of Capoocan entitled “Reducing Child Labor in Capoocan, Leyte” wherein it aims to reduce the number of working children in the deep sea fishing, and other rural occupations in the selected barangays of the municipality. Its direct beneficiaries are the 200 working children and their parents. The project will end on October 2016.