Thank you very much for your support and your messages of encouragement

I am really happy to see that this project touches you and it brings me a lot of courage for the future.

It remains a few days of campaign and the first level of 2000 € is reached! This sum will enable me to fulfill my first objective, which is to go to the field, as close as possible to working children in Pakistan and Nepal.

I still need you

I wish with all my heart to give visibility to all these children that the world tends to forget.

As we know, working children are in the millions and in different countries. Reaching the next level would allow me to expand my scope of investigation. I have in mind the image of these children who work in gold mines in the Philippines. I also want to give the book to a child soldier in Africa ... The cases are not lacking and there is so much to do to help them...

A few days then to go further together and make the project even bigger and thus convey a stronger message. thanks again

This project was born during an artist residency in Benin. I find myself facing a different reality: Working Children.

My first meeting was with coal sellers on a main road in Cotonou, Benin. They were very young, carrying bags of very heavy coals to sell to different houses from the truck. Always with me a sketchbook, I suggested to the youngest to make a drawing ... It was like a parenthesis: this moment of drawing in the middle of all these bags. The contrast is blatant: the white of the notebook in the middle of this dark coal black.

All along this travel, I discovered different jobs performed by very young children. I had this very present desire to give them this notebook. They could leave whatever they wanted; a drawing, a writing, a collage, a line, a trace ... Once the notebook in their hands, a very interesting situation is created then: a contrast, like a confrontation between reality and dream, the manual and the intellect, the factory and the creation, work and child.

As soon as the pencil on the sheet of paper, a lady exclaimed "What are you doing ? get back to work right now!" The child had time to leave a trace and a few lines on the leaf, then went back to work.

We are doing all together compositions in this notebook. The children leave messages revealing, mysterious and sublime. Their interventions fit into a composition or provoke and inspire new ones.

They may have forgotten for a short time their hard work, to remember, surely, that they are still children.

This project has an artistic intention, but especially a humanitarian dimension. My primary goal is to change this stark reality that affects about 168 million children worldwide (11% of children worldwide).

Indeed, as a visual artist, I would like to fight, in my own way, against the violation of child's rights. Drawing and photography as battle horses, to make visible and question this reality. The situations photographed, as well as the creations left by the children on this notebook will, in my opinion, be a message for humanity.

These children will be the actors of this fight for their rights. With each sale of their creations, a part will be donated to associations against child labor, to allow access to security, education and the realization of their dreams...

"Children should have PEN in their hands not TOOLS." Iqbal Masih (1983 - 1995)

Instagram is a platform where you can easily follow the progress of this project, as well as meetings with working children around the world, through storytelling and image sharing. Profile: ahmedhamidi_

I will be happy to answer your questions at this email address: hamidiahmed01@gmail.com

Pen & Tool