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Stanley and friends inspired by Ugandan Child Rights Clubs

28/11/2019

10-year-old Stanley Wilkes visited Uganda last month on behalf of Jessie Younghusband school student council. He spent time with the inspirational ‘Child Rights Clubs’ we support here, who are changing their communities in the slums surrounding Jinja. Now he is back in Chichester, exploring with his friends how they can put what he’s learnt into practice.

Stanley is a member of his student council at Jessie Younghusband primary school in Chichester, and his Dad Ben works for Children on the Edge. They travelled to Uganda at the end of October to find out exactly how Ugandan Child Rights Clubs have made such a difference and what he could learn to inspire his own Student Council at home in Chichester.

Soon after arriving in Jinja, Stanley went along to Loco Child Rights Club meeting, asking questions on behalf of the student council and hearing members explain about how they’ve succeeded in getting children into school, stopping abuse, and cleaning up the community. He also attended a Child Rights Club workshop in Wandago, where the club presented to over 100 children from the local primary school, teaching them all about their rights and responsibilities.

Stanley says “The children go home and tell their parents about what they’ve learnt, which changes things, but they also teach other children by running their own workshops and talking to them around the community, which works really well. It seems like children learn from other children, who are slightly older, a bit better sometimes, and they find them easier to talk to as well”.

Stanley also conducted a series of one-on-one interviews with children from both areas about what makes them feel safe in their communities. He described how “The children here have to deal with loads of things that we don’t often have to, and sometimes when they go to adults to talk about making a change, the adults have an angry response to them, but they just keep going!”

Stanley has recently presented his findings at a full school assembly, but the plans are just getting going. He has already fed back to the council and has ideas about litter picks, teaching about child rights, writing to local government about the environment and doing a poster campaign.

Paul Neaves, Deputy Headteacher from Jessie Younghusband says “We’re looking forward to the School Council putting into practice what Stanley has learnt in Uganda and leading an assembly about the rights of the child in the new year. They will also be inviting children to come and find the School Council at Surgeries and then putting together small working parties to tackle problems as they arise”.

Other local schools have already expressed an interest in taking Jessie Younghusband’s lead and implementing some of the ideas from Uganda, so the achievements of the Jinja Child Rights Clubs are set to have international influence.

Naturally no trip would be complete without a few good games of football, which was one of Stanley’s highlights. He says “I really liked playing with the children, it’s no different to playing with friends at home. They don’t play video games, but apart from that it was the same. I feel like the world sees a lot of people in poorer countries as gloomy and isolated, but they’re not, they’re enjoying life. The main thing I can learn from them is that they believe in what they do, and they don’t let anything get in the way”.

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Broadening horizons through digital learning - Meet Raiyan

19/11/2019

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Raiyan is 10 years old and a student in a school supported by Children on the Edge in the Rohingya Kutupalong refugee camp in Bangladesh. He has learnt a lot since starting school and is now working at level 2. He concentrates hard in his lessons and is naturally very creative. When his teacher tells a story or describes something that has happened to the class, Raiyan immediately starts imagining it.

Wandago Child Rights Club - leading from the start

18/11/2019

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Not only this, but the children here have been leading transformation since 2017. When we first started working here, we asked the children what needed to change. They took us on a tour of the area and told us about some of the problems they faced. We interviewed many of them, and they created a map of Wandago with sticks, leaves and stones to show us the places that were safe and the places where they felt afraid.

They told us about high levels of child exploitation, that there was little access to education and a lack of healthy jobs due to all the dangerous breweries that dominate the area. One of the main problems they described was how when they went to the well for water alone, many girls had been victims of rape and sexual assault.

In the last few years, the Child Protection Team in Wandago have been working to stop this. They have done regular spot checks at the well, many workshops on child protection and ensured that no-one walks there by themselves. Since this point there have been no attacks.

They have been working on wider issues too, supporting the opening of a new Early Childhood Development Centre, and starting a small loan scheme to create healthy livelihoods and make it possible for parents to send children to school.

The same children who raised their voices about these needs in Wandago are now part of the Child Rights Club, piloted in Loco, but now also active in Masese I and Wandago. They are trained about their rights and work hand in hand with the Child Protection Team.

Babra is the social worker for Children on the Edge Africa. She says,

“The Child Rights Clubs help in identifying child abuse cases, because sometimes the children do not report to adults what they go through, but they share freely with fellow children, so in the process the Child Rights Club get to get information, they inform the Child Protection Team.”

Children in Wandago are now not only safer, but teaching other children about being safer, delivering regular workshops to hundreds of younger children, and talking to parents about how to clean up the area and make sure children can go to school.