A Bright light shinning
When Good Hope Foundation with support from Children’s rights and violence prevention fund (CRVPF) introduced school clubs in the communities, many children rejoiced and thought “the long wait is over”. They viewed this as an opportunity to gain more class knowledge and also gather to share experiences of how the lockdown was affecting them. The parents were also excited and gladly entrusted us with the children.
We received an overwhelming number of pupils ranging from 20 to 40 and these were taken through life skills to enable them build their self-confidence and esteem to ably express themselves and their feelings towards VAC. Most children had lost hope and some were already taken away by the “small” jobs they were involved in as one Simeon asserted, “I think this could be the end of our studies. We have been engaged in making bricks and we are earning money, enough to feed us at home. Some of our parents will not send us back because they are already comfortable of what we are offering…”
This gave us a basis to conduct several one-on-one counseling sessions for the children, assuring them that education is their right and that it can change life for the better, not looking at only money but whole individual development.
Safe spaces were created, where children are clustered according to gender and age, to talk about life experiences, existence of VAC in their communities and in these sessions, they are able to support each other, to equip each other with knowledge to fight VAC incidences. For example, Mumbere Valeri came with a challenge in the safe spaces of being beaten by his step father almost every day. His body had a lot of scars and his peers advised him to ask his mother to reunite him with his real father to avoid his step father’s brutality. After him talking to the mother, Valeri was taken back to his family and he is happy that finally, he is able to live without being tormented.
D5 Creation