ChildLinK engages schools to stamp out child abuse

ChildLinK Inc, in collaboration with Family Awareness Consciousness Togetherness (FACT), Heavenly Light World Outreach Fellowship, and The Orchid Foundation, is currently engaging primary and secondary schools in Regions Three, Four and Five to conduct sensitisation sessions as part of its current project, the Child Rights Alliance (CRA).

The facilitators of these sensitisation sessions are trained by ChildLinK’s Child Care Counsellor and Trainer, Stacy Parris, to engage students in classroom discussions about various topics relating to child abuse, measures to prevent child abuse, and the rights and

Child Care Counsellor and trainer, Stacy Parris

responsibilities of the child.

Parris’s experience in the CRA and past projects continue to highlight how important teachers are to increasing the number of reported cases of child abuse.

Parris has several years of experience providing counselling and sensitisation to children, and training teachers in new approaches to address violence in schools. In her experience, she has noted a gap between students and teachers.

“Children are generally of the view that they cannot be open and honest to their teachers. I would ask students (who were abused), ‘Why is it that you never told your class teacher, a particular subject teacher or even your head teacher?’ And they would often say, ‘Who can I trust?’” the childcare counsellor and trainer said.

“Teachers can bridge the apparent gap by showing a genuine interest in their students and by being more vigilant, even though we know this is adding more to their already heavy workload,” she explained.

“Teachers have their curriculum to teach, registers to update, work plans and other reports to produce, and that is going to take up most of their time. But if teachers really want to help their students to learn, a holistic approach is crucial,” she posited.

Noting that a child cannot learn effectively if his/her world outside of school is unbalanced, Parris said: “Teachers should have a genuine interest in their students, and be able to get to know them better. Know a little about the child’s home situation and their community. A teacher must also be vigilant in order to observe changes in a child’s behaviour.”

The sensitisation sessions, conducted by members of the CRA, continue to further illustrate that there are many unreported cases of children suffering from child abuse while attending schools.

When children learn about abuse and know that are systems in place to protect them, they often feel encouraged to come forward and report their stories to the facilitators, the trainer noted.

Meanwhile, CRA partners working in Regions Three, Four and Five have sensitised 473 students in three secondary schools and two primary schools. Of the 473 students, 34, or 1 in every 13 students, indicated to a CRA facilitator that they were abused in some form.

While those figures are not indicative of the national situation, they are nonetheless disturbing. The cases of abuse reported to the Child Rights Alliance facilitators are physical, sexual and neglect.

ChildLinK and the CRA partners follow the protocol of Guyana’s child protection system by reporting child abuse cases to the Child Care and Protection Agency (CPA).