Children Stopping Child Abuse

There are some moments in life you just can’t beat. Running around Cochabamba’s equivalent of the Houses of Parliament with kids from the Fundacion Emmanuel project (the ministry for children of prostitutes that I was telling you about in my previous post), campaigning for good treatment of children last week was definitely one of them. 

Try saying this to twenty irrepressible children: “This is an important government building so you need to be good. Don’t run and don’t shout!” It just didn’t work. They went nuts, and who can blame them? 

The Good Treatment vaccination campaign is all about children voicing their rights. They approach adults with recipe cards. On one side are the ingredients for good treatment of children: a bit of respect, understanding, a portion of humour, an abundance of tolerance, a piece of patience, and others. On the other side is a space for the recipient to write his or her name, sign and date – and voila! – they’re vaccinated. Along with the card and a leaflet, they receive a sweet.

The campaigning children were split up into groups of three. While one child was with a government official in one office, the other two would be racing upstairs to meet the next one. I couldn’t run and catch them to tell them to wait, because that would leave one behind alone. But I couldn’t shout after them because we would have been kicked out!

Despite the chaos it was a great opportunity. The kids loved running up to the important people who govern their city, campaigning for something they all recognise is of such crucial necessity to them.

It's a necessity because eight in 10 Bolivian children are abused where they should be most safe, right in their homes. This is the major underlying cause of child homelessness, and by extension, of child membership in gangs and child drug abuse. When children don't feel safe at home, they're likely to turn to the streets. The average life expectancy of a child on the street is only four years. That's why it's so important to advocate for child protection: when Bolivian adults recognise that child abuse isn't just part of growing up, children will feel safe at home. Good Treatment gets the word out and puts the power of advocacy into children's hands.

Last Wednesday was Good Treatment’s kick-off. To start, children and leaders from projects, churches and care organisations all over the city were all gathered in the Plaza Principal in the centre of Cochabamba. Then we fanned out to reach adults (including our government officials) all over the city. Thousands of children in other Bolivian cities are campaigning this month too. Throughout September the children will be holding events all over Cochabamba.

On top of their vaccination campaign, the children act and dance out the theme of protecting child rights. The adults are involved too: Daniel Cuaquira, the director of Early Encounter in Cochabamba (an exciting initiative of Viva and Toybox, helping kids and families on the streets), spent all day on the microphone in Plaza Principal getting people fired up about children’s rights, explaining the campaign and interviewing various people.

It’s always so uplifting to witness – and be part of – so many children’s projects working together toward the same goal. That’s the aim of the Viva-Toybox partnership. They’ve been working together to successfully roll out the Early Encounter programme here in Cochabamba, around Bolivia, and all over Latin America. With planning, prayer and financial support from Toybox and Viva’s expertise in implementing projects on the ground, the results have been extremely positive and bode well for the future of Latin America’s most vulnerable children!

Altogether it’s been a great start to the campaign, and everyone here in Cochabamba is pumped up and looking forward to the rest of the month. Viva el Buen Trato - long live Good Treatment!

~ Jonnie in Cochabamba

To learn more about how Viva is advocating for child rights, go to www.viva.org/advocacy

Read my personal blog at www.jonniewelford.blogspot.com