THE Guyana Red Cross Society (GRCS) in collaboration with the (National Centre for Education Research & Development (NCERD) conducted a Violence Prevention Workshop on Thursday at NCERD’s Training Room, Battery Road, Kingston, Georgetown with the aim of ensuring a comprehensive approach to violence prevention. The training programme, dubbed ‘Be Safe,’ saw the participation of representatives from 10 ‘Special Needs’ schools as well as other individuals in society. According to the programme facilitator, Ms. Marcelle George, the overall objective of the two-day seminar was to sensitise adults on the different forms of abuse, how to handle disclosures, and prevention strategies.
Ms. George explained: “The focus was on how to protect children against physical, emotional and sexual abuse and we wanted those who work with children to recognize that sometimes behaviour changes in children may be as a result of some form of abuse.”
Through storytelling, puppetry, songs and hands-on activities, children in the “Be Safe!” programme would learn to recognize and react to threats of sexual and physical abuse.
As to the scope of the training, George noted that the target group are children between the ages of 5-9 years old to teach them about body ownership, body privacy, that touches can be safe or unsafe, secrets about touching should never be kept and personal safety rules and to Say “NO!”, get away and tell someone you trust – keep telling until someone helps you.
George also pointed out that a similar activity was conducted two years ago and based on the feedback it was proven to be successful.
“We had positive reviews but there are still persons out there who are unaware,” she stated.
Some of the participants were from the David Rose School, Guyana Greenheart Association,the Ptolemy Reid Rehabilitation Centre and the Guyana Society for the Blind.
Alluding to the impact of such training, the representative from the Ptolemy Reid Rehabilitation Centre noted that the programme  would serve as a tool for children to safeguard themselves against predators, especially those children in need of special care.
“It is good for all children, but it is extremely important that these children are safe whenever their parents and caregivers are not around, they need to know what is acceptable and what is wrong,” she explained.
The teacher highlighted that even though such training and awareness are good, more focus should be placed on moral and spiritual education to help all children to better understand the concept of wrong and right.