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Save the Children have joined the global community to commemorate the Day of the African children alongside strategic stakeholders across the country.
The engagement is geared towards facilitating children with the opportunity to share ideas, network on how to end harmful practices affecting them.
In the Western Area Urban District, Children from the Children’s Forum Network,Prince of Wales Secondary, Saint Edwards Secondary, Saint Joseph Secondary, Fattah Rahman Secondary , and War Wounded Primary Schools were in attendance.
The rationale behind the engagement is to give safe spaces to children so that they will be able to really understand what harmful practices mean in the Sierra Leone context and also talk about the work they have been doing in Sierra Leone since 1999.
The workshop further tracked progress on policy and practice since 2013, find ways to tackle negative practices that affect the wellbeing of children. Children and Stakeholders were educated on various forms of abuse and their Safe Guardian Policy that protect children from intentional and unintentional harm .
Save the Children further created games and other activities which illustrates harmful practices and what it means. They linked the issues to what’s going on in Sierra Leone and what happened in Soweto, South Africa many years ago.
The Organisation believes children are still going through issues that are affecting them to harness their full potentials and that is why the workshop aimed at making sure children have an equal voice in the area of protection especially around areas of harmful practices.
Speaking on the impact of the workshop towards the children , Advocacy and Communication Director of Save The Children Ramatu Jalloh, states that
” For us it’s really a platform where children really can speak to each other and understand what’s going on in theeir country as well as understand some of the work we have been doing for them to be able to go out in their communities and be able to become advocates especially around harmful practices.”
The facilitator of the program is a 13 years old Secondary school pupil, Kolleh Bangura from the Murray Town Army Junior Secondary school.
Kolleh Bangura thanked Save the Children for giving him the opportunity to moderate the educative program. He added that what they have learnt from the workshop will enable them to voice out concerns by calling Save the Children free toll line if they noticed any harmful practices happening to children within their various communities.
15 years old Zainab Kargbo from the Fattah Rahman Junior Secondary School also expressed excitement for what she learnt from the Workshop. She confirmed that this is the first time she has got the opportunity to attend a workshop that speaks to issues affecting children. She thanked Save the Children for the opportunity.
The workshop was comprised of a mix of girls and boys from schools and also from communities in their operational districts to understand and speak to the issues around harmful practices.
As part of their strategic plans for 2022 and 2024, the non governmental organisation is striving to make sure children’s voices are heard and are able to take actions when sone of these issues of harmful practices against them erupted within their various communities.
As they seek for children to put forward their cases to them, they expect to get a feedback from the now enlightened children because they believe in children’s participation
