District of Asia – Report of Child Rights 2015
In this year each “Child Protection Country Coordinator” tries to follow the orientations they got in the Child Protection Workshop that was took place in 2014 concerning to implantation of “MDA Keeping Children Safe Policy”. Some countries don’t have progress in this, still working in.
The MDA Council appointed Br Cesar Henriquez, from November 2015 to replaced Br Ismael Valls as a District safeguarding delegate.
COUNTRIES ACTIVITIES REPORT – 2015
INDIA
Talit
In the Child rights matter in Talit community:
- We are on the process of finalizing the document and Br. Pepito is working on it.
- Sometimes we are able to explain children’s rights and help them to learn to be good children by doing their necessary responsibilities.
- Help them to understand to think about them and their purpose of living in this hostel.
- Creating atmosphere to ask freely question and clarification.
- We are trying our best by taking care of them and provide their necessary needs.
BANGLADESH
Marists in Bangladesh are hoping to raise awareness on the rights and protection of children with the collaboration of bishops and other religious superiors.
Organized by the Marist brothers from July 7-11, a workshop that held at the Catholic Bishops Conference of Bangladesh included 50 participants from six dioceses and 12 religious congregations. The gathering was organized by the Marist Brothers in partnership with the Episcopal Justice and Peace Commission and was sponsored by FMSI.
Nearly 40% of the population in Bangladesh is under the age of 18 and we noted that “child labor, human trafficking, child marriage, malnutrition, lack of access to health and education, floods, diseases and poverty are very common realities here.”
Catholics including priests, religious and lay people oversee 124 boarding houses, hostels and orphanages, as well as over 150 schools in Bangladesh.
The proposed objectives of the workshop were:
- To raise awareness about child protection issues in the country and its impact in our catholic institutions.
- To promote knowledge and reflection about Children’s Rights and Child Protection among priests, religious and lay people in charge of institutions related to children: primary and secondary schools, boarding schools, hostels, orphanages and clinics; and among those who are responsible of them: Bishops and Religious Superiors.
- To provide knowledge and support for those people and organizations who want to implement Child Protection Policies in catholic institutions related to children: schools, boarding schools, hostels, orphanages and clinics, according to our religious spirit and respectful of our cultural values and civil legislations.
The workshop was very well done and the evaluation very positive.
After that, the Bishops Conference of Bangladesh invited Br Cesar Henriquez to promoted similar formation to all Bangladesh’s dioceses. After consultation and approval of the MDA Council, he accepts this invitation and start to organize these Child Rights desks around the Bangladesh’s Dioceses.
In Mynmensing Community – Br Cesar gave seminary in formation house concerning to Child rights and Child protection.
CAMBODIA
Mondolkiry:
- Preparing the first of three workshops for Staff members and collaborators: English and Khmer, lot of time to translate and find the best way to teach. We have the schedule and we are working on the details. Possible to do it end of this school year.
- We planed 3 short workshops. The diocese has shown interest in them. We also invited the staffs of the two Catholic Kinder gardens in Busra and Dak Dam
- Filling up the forms for the Students ` Center staff: brothers and house manager. The collaborators (cook and computer teacher) will do it at the end of the first workshop.
- Written Consulting. The students had the opportunity to express in an anonymous way, their opinion, feelings, complains and approvals, about life in the Students` Center. They also evaluate the staff members.
- Reflection: In the international press there were some reports about child abuse among children in some kinder gardens. We have to considerate that possibilities and help our educators to be attentive and avoid this situations.
- Challenge: The students of our Center are finishing high school. Several of them are already adults, (18 and older). Some are in their 16 teens. We had the last two years workshops called “Carol and Sytha”, coordinated by a Mary Knoll team, about relationship between men and women, but we also have to considerate to have some specific formation about child protection with our young adults.
As the delegate for Cambodia, I will propose a similar process for the Brothers and lay in Pailin. Once we arrive to this point, we can think about an annual meeting for all the Brothers and Lay as a way of ongoing formation in our mission.
Pailin
Generally almost all the apostolic works are focus on the youth and children rights, however for the purpose of this report I would like to focus on one special event that took place in July 2015. Annual Summer Camp children:
Through the collaboration of the Marist Community of Pailin and a group of Spanish Volunteers, a Summer Camp was organized for 340 children who came from Pailin and its surrounding areas from the 26th to the 31st of July 2015.
The activities of the camp included feeding, hygiene lessons, English language lessons, sports and outing. Clothes and educational materials were distributed to all the participants at the end of camp.
SRI LANKA
In the Tudella Novitiate, Sri Lanka the purpose is to follow the Formation Program and in this program has a brief study session on children’s rights. During this exercise, the novices were able to have a glimpse at:
- The dire needs of children all over the world.
- The invitation of the Institute to be experts in the defense of rights of children and young.
- Introductory knowledge on the convention on the rights of children.
It is what happens every year with the novices as part of that community.
THAILAND
This first year of implementation of our Child Rights Policy has been quite changed by the circumstances, in the brothers’ three working-sites: the Marist Center for Migrants (Samut Sakhon), the Karen village in Pala-U (Pranburi), and the Youth House (Pranburi). We can conclude that, instead of starting the process of implementation (which was the general objective) we are still in the last stage of elaboration, because of those circumstances.
Due to the brother’s special situation in Pranburi along the whole year, which has finished with the closing of those two projects in October, nothing has been done there.
This is a brief about what has been done in Samut Sakhon:
1-The Policy
- The Child Rights written Policy was finished in March 2015, and approved by the brothers in the Marist Centre.
- In April, with the holidays, the Policy was given to the responsible of the Project, Fr. Vittaya, the parish priest, to be approved. This was the Specific Objective-3
- The priest gave it to the Parish Secretary to be translated into Thai. They agreed to finish the work in July-August, with the intention of applying it to the three centers.
- In August, the Parish Secretary left the job, and nothing was given to us.
- In September, a new Secretary took the position… but this one is not able to translate an official English document into Tai.
- In November, therefore seems to be that we are in the same situation than in April, and no prospects of having it translated before the year’s end. And until it will be translated and approved by the Diocese responsible, it cannot be given to the teachers and staff of our center to be read and signed.
2 – The 1 day workshop to raise awareness of children protection was done with the teachers of the three centers.
We programmed a possible one-day training workshop, but in accordance with the Project responsible, we joined the three centers staff for a Workshop on Child Protection from the National Catholic Commission on Migration (NCCM).
It has been the first time that our teachers have heard about Child Protection. The global evaluation has been very positive.
3- And in regard to the students, two activities have been carried out:
- Our students participating in a special Government Program for migrants and illiterate young people (“Kosono”) had a session on Child Rights. This work has been reinforced in the Computer class and extended to the rest of A-Class students.
- We have prepared with the older students a session about Children Rights to be explained (in English and Burmese) to the rest of the students. During a week they prepared it, and on Friday 20 November, the International Children Rights Say, we had the session.
4- And aimed specially at parents, though the children were also invited to assist: we prepared and offered also a workshop about protecting the children’s right of Education, on November 1st. Our goal is raising awareness of the importance of studying for a better future of their children, and prevent the kids to be sent to work (sometimes as young as 10 or 12 years) We were assisted by the teachers and young students from the Marist Fathers Center in Ranong. They also shared their experience with the three centers staff.
PHILIPPINES
DAVAO
We have had some sessions, given by Br. Luis, explaining how important is for Marist Congregation to keep safe the children. He worked with the postulants helping them to understand the documents of our District and doing some reflection about the steps our Districts has done on this regard, when he was the District Leader, and later on.
All of this was done before we started the Apostolic Ministry experience in different places of Davao: Jail, Missionary Sister of Charity with the orphan children and with the Missionary Sister of Charity with the aged people.
Also all the brothers, as Marist personnel, of our community have signed de documents sent by our District Office about the Policy of "Code of Behavior", (Appendix 4- Confidential Application Form). These applications Form are in the Community Leader Office.
Conclusion
These are the goals we have obtained during this year in MDA, concerning to the implementation of the Policy: Keeping Children Safe. We know that it is not the progress that we planned and expect in 2013. For the next year we expect more progress in each community according to their realities and limitations.
Neiva Hoffelder
CRC – MDA Link Person to Geneva /Rome
December 2015
