On the International Day of Tea, May 21, 2024, The Centre for Child Rights and Business, in collaboration with Save the Children, will host the third edition of the annual family-friendly tea industry conference. This year, the spotlight of the conference will be on the tea smallholders, who produce around 70% of Sri Lanka’s tea production, and the private small and mid-sized tea estates.
The theme of this year’s conference is business and human rights. The keynote speech by Simon Bell, Chair Ceylon Artisanal Tea Association, will focus on why investing on human rights is good for business. The half-day conference will include two significant discussions: ‘Business and human rights in tea smallholdings and private small and mid-sized estates – impossible, difficult or a walk in the park?’ and ‘Child labour in tea communities, a myth or reality?’. These two critical questions will be explored by panelists from Tea Smallholder Federation, Tea Estate Owners Association, Tea Factory Owners Association, Voice of Plantation People, Department of Labour, Plantation Human Development Trust as well as a retired education department official, with facilitation from the moderators, Buddhini Withana, Senior Technical Advisor Child Protection and Child Rights in Business, Save the Children and Balachandran Gowthaman, Attorney at law and activist.
The event will be conducted in Sinhala, Tamil and English, ensuring accessibility for all participants.
The Centre for Child Rights and Business will launch the Seal Challenge 2024 Round 2 at the conference.
For more information on the mother and child-friendly seal, visit https://srilanka-motherandchildseal.org/.
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