Projects we fund
IKEA has worked with Save the Children for over a decade. Save the Children was instrumental in the development of IKEA’s policy against child labour, ‘The IKEA Way on Preventing Child Labour Code of Conduct ’ launched in 2000.
Building on this work, the IKEA Foundation has been funding Save the Children projects that help improve children’s education and keep children out of work since 2005.
Preventing child labour
The IKEA Foundation’s current work grew out of IKEA’s efforts to prevent child labour in their supply chain. This has evolved into a broad commitment to fight for the rights of all children in the developing world.
We fund Save the Children’s programmes in India and Pakistan that work with local communities to prevent children from working and ensure they have access to education. The projects do this by focusing on three key areas:
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Access to education: Improving the quality of education to make sure children complete school and reduce the drop-out rate;
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A sustainable family income: Enhancing family incomes through access to government social security and rural work schemes;
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Changing attitudes: Raising awareness in cotton-growing communities of children’s rights and the dangers to children from working in cotton fields and factories.
The projects have so far helped 65,000 children in Gujarat and Maharashtra move out of child labour and into the classrooms. In 2012 the IKEA Foundation and Save the Children expanded the project into a further three states in India – Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan – as well as into Pakistan.
The IKEA Foundation funds Save the Children’s work to tackle the root causes of child labour because we believe that every child has the right to go to school.
Soft Toys for Education
Since 2003, the Soft Toys for Education campaign has been run in IKEA stores worldwide. During the holiday period, for every soft toy brought, the IKEA Foundation donates €1 to Save the Children and UNICEF projects to help educate kids.
In 2012, the IKEA Foundation funded Save the Children education projects in Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Lithuania, Myanmar, the Philippines and Romania.
Read more about how the Soft Toys for Education is making a difference to the lives of millions of children.
Want to see how the money makes a difference? Check out our IWitness blog , where IKEA co-workers post their photos and stories when they visit Soft Toys projects.