Making Children’s Voices Heard

Universal children's day is celebrated on October 26th. Baptist World Aid Australia is dedicated to improving the well-being of children living in poverty and one really important way to do that is to listen. Today we listen to the concerns of two groups of children involved with our SAO Child Sponsorship programs...

Child Marriage

“My name is Riya and I belong to one of PARI’s Adolescent Groups. I am one of the group’s three leaders.

We are receiving lots of training from PARI facilitators. This has included lessons on social awareness, reproductive health, conflict mediation and law and primary health care.”

One of the big problems facing girls in Bangladesh is early marriage. Although the legal marrying age for girls is 18, 69% of girls in rural areas are married before the age of 18. This often means that girls miss out on schooling and bearing children young increases the risks of childbirth for both mothers and their babies.

Riya’s group has spent time learning about the dangers of early marriage and their legal rights. They are concerned about this issue that effects them so much and together they have written and performed a play (pictured) for their community to raise awareness about the dangers of early marriage.

Groups like Riya’s have also stepped in when marriages are arranged for their members. The girls and their facilitators talk to parents and community leaders and they are able to express their opinions about the marriage. On numerous occasions this has meant that marriages have been postponed until after the girl has finished her schooling.

“We are happy to be able to receive these lessons from the PARI staff and the people in the community are benefiting from the initiative,” said Riya.

PARI is one of Baptist World Aid Australia’s partners running SAO Child Sponsorship in Bangladesh.

Education

Education is a big concern for children and good education can be the key to breaking the generational cycle of poverty. Unfortunately, for many children living in poor areas, accessing good education can be very difficult.

In Nepal Baptist World Aid Australia has a SAO Child Sponsorship program run through our partner United Mission to Nepal. At the beginning of this year, one of the community facilitators helped establish a child club, which meets together regularly. “We discuss many aspects of children’s problems,” said one of the students involved, “we try to clarify our roles and responsibilities and our rights too, and make plans for the development of our school and our own development.'

One of the issues that came up very quickly in their discussions was education. The children shared that often their teachers would show up late or not at all. And frequently those teachers would be seen playing cards outside the school when they were meant to be in class. On many occasions, the students wanted to organise extra activities and talked with teachers, but the teachers would not listen.

The community facilitator helped the children learn stronger ways of speaking up to their elders and they prepared an action plan to combat this problem, including a one-day meeting with the school management committee and the teachers. At this meeting the children raised the question of the teachers’ responsibilities, their chairperson said, “Teachers are our guides; they have to inspire us and show the right way.  But some of our teachers play cards in public when they should be teaching us. How can we learn new and good things from them?' Together the children and the school management committee wrote a code of conduct, which the school has now signed and committed to.

After this meeting the teachers have stopped playing cards in public. Now that they know that they will be held to account to fulfil their responsibilities and the children are seeing many changes at the school. All the members of the club were really excited about the success of their first project and they are looking forward to other things they can do to improve their community.

Univeral Children's Day in Bangladesh

Universal children’s day is celebrated across the world on November 22nd. Our SAO Child Sponsorship partner in Bangladesh had a celebration day to mark the occasion.

The children in the community had a rally in the morning and a discussion with community leaders, project staff and government officials about children’s rights.

In the afternoon there was a cultural program (pictured) with children performing music and dance and also folksongs that help raise awareness about issues that affect children in the community.

*Riya’s name has been changed.
Sources: Unicef (2010) State of the World’s Children