Mondo's volunteers in Kenya

TALKING ABOUT CHILD EDUCATION WITH COMMUNITIES

During this month of August in Shianda, the schools are closed for the holidays; I seize the opportunity to spend time with the communities to speak about child education and issues.

How to discuss the education of children and the problems encountered with these communities?

I decided to rely on 3 posters, as a basis for my explanations and exchanges.

The first is about the child protection network.  

Parents are not the only actors in the child’s development, they are surrounded by the extended family, but also by the community, institutions and society in general.

Parents are obviously responsible for their child and must be vigilant to ensure that the child's environment is safe and caring.

This poster allowed for a lot of discussion about the potential risks in the community and the institutions (bad associations, road risks, mistreatment at school ...). We thought about ways to protect children and avoid these potential risks.

The second poster is based on the Convention on the Rights of the Child with its main beneficiaries and main articles.

The fundamental rights of children are:

•The right to an identity. Now in Shianda, this is no longer a problem. According to communities, it is easy to obtain a birth certificate necessary for all future steps concerning the child.

•The right to live and good develop. This consists of giving the child the food, water and necessary care. This right makes members of groups wonder, they are often well aware of not having enough money to feed their child 3 times a day. I accompanied my explanations of support for the fact that they do their best for their child and that even if sometimes life does not allow to be perfect, the important thing is to provide what we can and of course to regularly monitor the health of his child, to react if necessary.

•The right to education. Bringing their child to school is very important for members of these communities. They are aware of the challenge of education for the future. We also exchange the fact that the school, although essential, is not the only source of education and for that we referred to the poster number 1.

•The right to be protected and loved. To define this right, we have of course mentioned the risks identified in the poster number one and the responsibility of parents or guardians to provide means of protection against these risks.

•The right to participate. This right brought a lot of discussion and questions from the participants. We performed role plays to demonstrate that communication and explanations can reassure children. It had to be explained that involving the child does not mean giving up everything to him or waiting for his consent, the parent remains the decision maker. But often, the child understands his environment better when an adult take time to explain to him and this can reduce frustrations or misunderstandings. Lack of time is an excuse not to talk with the child, but I try to explain to them that starting by forcing a few minutes a day will be very beneficial in intra-family relationships.

The third poster explains the development of the child and the different areas of simultaneous development: physically, intellectually, morally, socially and emotionally.

This third step in the exchanges allows a return on everything that has been previously discussed and to identify the various problems faced by parents or guardians.

The main concern that has been identified in each group is the relationship with adolescents. It was very interesting to discuss this period of childhood that is problematic everywhere in the world! We had to talk about our own memories of our teenage times and what we had to blame our parents for, or what we missed. I am surprised by the participation to these exchanges because the members talk sincerely and bring elements of understanding very useful to the group and also some solutions to test at home, as to find the time to exchange with his child as a first step to creating a relationship of trust. Games and mimes around emotions have been very useful to develop this topic.

If time allowed, we could also, in some groups, talk from case studies, related to the problems encountered here and so think together about the risks and the possible solutions to avoid or overcome them.

These times of exchange are always very studious but also very warm and punctuated by a shared meal, songs and prayers.

 

And then I must not forget that, who says "I will come to speak with you about education", means for the chairladies to invite the children to participate in the sessions. 

It was always nice to take the time to play with the children while waiting for the arrival of all participants and to see them interested by listening to the exchanges between adults. This, in my opinion, indirectly allowed a first new contact between children and adults, around the needs of some and the attentions of others.

Thank you again for your warm welcome, your constant attention and your sharing of experiences.

I will try to plan new sessions with these same groups before my departure to discuss possible attempts to change and problems encountered.