Schoolkids come up with charter on safety of children

 Over 200 schoolchildren from government and private schools came together to share their experiences, create campaigns, slogans and a children’s charter on child safety and sexual harassment issues at schools.

Observing World Day for Prevention of Child Abuse, a workshop on “Our Safety, Our Voice – By the Children, for the Children and of the Children” was organised by Inventure Academy in association with Enfold Proactive Health Trust, Children’s Movement for Civic Awareness (CMCA).

The team from Enfold facilitated discussions about their presentations and provided guidance on personal safety concepts, rules, and child rights. Students worked in groups to come up with recommendations and campaign ideas that they would like to see their parents, schools, police and government adopt for child safety and to recognise, resist and report incidents of child abuse.

Our Safety, Our Voice will raise awareness to help educate one lakh underprivileged students, and their parents and faculty through their project called “Laksha Makkala Suraksha Project.” This ambitious project necessitates a need to develop a scalable model for such an endeavor in our society.

The charter, prepared entirely by the children, will be submitted to the relevant stakeholders like the Education Department, police, etc as soon as all the points are collated and formatted.

Some of the highlights of the charter includes to have - parents and schools must teach kids how to react in problematic situations; children should be encouraged to learn self-defence; children should not be shamed or judged; security in all schools to be improved;

conduct workshops for child safety regularly for all stakeholders at schools; a zero-tolerance policy must be implemented in all schools for bullying and sexual harassment; cyber security measures must be strengthened; institute to have better laws to protect the rights of children; to provide accessible helpline for children and speedy justice for victims.