My Dream Colorful Home
“There are safe villages, clean rivers, safe and orderly roads, vehicles that follow traffic rules, medical stations that can be accessed any time, friendly neighbors and parents and teachers that understand us” shared by the 11-year-old Xiaoming eagerly.
This scene took place at the preparatory children workshop of the Sixth Children Development Forum in Yangxian County.
A total of 20 students from the fifth and sixth grades of primary school in Yangxian, Shaanxi Province participated in the preparatory workshop. This is to prepare for the upcoming Children Forum on April 16th, where students would have to present their voices. The students were divided into four groups to express their expectations of the ideal village, school, family, and friends. They shared their thoughts about INSPIRE framework through words and pictures, which systematically help students to understand how the strategies could protect them. Their expectations for the INSPIRE strategy will be shared with adults in the forum, allowing adults to listen to the voices of children. By putting themselves into the shoes of Ali, an animation of INSPIRE, children share freely of their idea homes.
What is INSPIRE?
More than one billion children worldwide suffer physical, psychological or sexual violence each year. In the face of such a tough situation, the World Health Organization and its partners, in 2016, launched INSPIRE, seven strategies to reduce violence against children. INSPIRE is a set of technical measures for everyone involved in preventing and eliminating violence against children and adolescents – from the government to the general public, from civil society to the private sector. The strategy builds on existing best practices and guides activities from ensuring child-centred legal implementation to promoting positive parent-child relationships and providing social and economic assistance.
What is the ideal village, school, family, and friends in the minds of the children? Let's take a look together➜
This is our ideal school
This is our Ideal Home
For friends, children also have their own thoughts.
Discussed issues
• What are the rivers, roads, vehicles, etc. in an ideal village to ensure the healthy and happy growth of Ali?
• Ali is small and sometimes bullied by other classmates. What do you want the teacher to do to help him?
• Ali’s father is too busy and cannot spend time with him. Is that okay, why? What do you want Ali's father to do?
• How can Ali's friend help him when Ali makes a mistake?
▲ Students draw ideal friends while discussing how to respond to questions.
|
INSPIRE strategy |
Children's expectations |
Association with INSPIRE |
|
Implement and enforce the law |
♡ The bad guys who bully children should be punished |
Children expect to have legal systems in the community, schools have school rules to protect them from harm, and expect those who harm children would be punished |
|
Norms and values |
♡ Money is not omnipotent, can't measure emotions |
Children’s voices are more about protecting children's values. For example, boys and girls have the right to go to school and choose their own interests and hobbies. Children should be taken seriously. |
|
Safe environment |
There are safe villages, clean rivers, safe roads, vehicles that comply with regulations, medical clinic that can be accessed at any time, and neighbors who understand their parents and teachers to ensure their children's health and happiness. |
Children expressed their expectations for a safe environment, which may cause harm to children should be avoided. Expectations were raised on the importance of the surrounding social environment to be safe for children, such as villagers should not instruct children to do bad things. |
|
Support parents and caregivers |
♡ Parents provide timely encouragement |
Children expressed the expectations for parents and caregivers. For example, parents should positively discipline children and listen to children's opinions. Fathers should also participate in family education and accompany them to children. |
|
Improve income and economic conditions |
♡I hope that families have their own rooms and have financial conditions to support their hobbies; |
In the drawing, one can see that there needs to have certain economic foundation for the construction of facilities such as community, family, and schools |
|
Referral and support services |
♡If the child is sick or injured because of the village environment, I hope someone can improve the environment; |
Children expressed the desire to have referral and support services when they are harmed or threatened so that the environment is improved and security is guaranteed. |
|
Education and life skills |
♡ Schools can teach children some life skills and self-protection knowledge; |
Children mentioned that they need to learn some life skills, whether at school or at home, to help them protect themselves, make friends, and learn to do things. |
The questions raised by the students in this preparatory workshop will be discussed in the upcoming 6th Yang Xian Children Forum, themed Care for the Next Generation, with partiaiton from government, ministries and related experts.
Child protection efforts cannot be addressed by a single intervention and must be done through multidisciplinary, multisectoral stakeholders. “Government-led, multi-participation, family-oriented, and family-oriented”, INSPIRE is a well-established strategy developed by WHO to propose best practices in seven areas for the protection of children.
This is consistent with Vision's child protection strategy, which we believe is not only an example of China's child protection efforts, but also a systematic framework for measuring child protection programs. Further, INSPIRE can promote the exchange of child protection work between different institutions and countries, promote child protection work, and finally stop the abuse, exploitation, trafficking and all forms of violence and torture of children (sustainable Development Goal 16.2).
For more information on child protection and “terminating domestic violence against children”, please continue to follow us.
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