Private kids vs. public kids

I’m working on a pilot project to prevent child sexual abuse. Sex is a very strong taboo and people don´t usually talk about it. That’s why in this pilot kids and moms are involved and they are supposed to work together in a way that they have to talk to each other about it.

A workbook with exercises is given to the kids and the moms. They start by learning what are rules and why they exist, acknowledge feelings and understand what means to be sad, happy, angry and confused, and finally they learn about their private body parts. Then they learn the touching rules that say that “it is never all right for someone to touch your private body parts except to keep you clean”.

My job is to schedule meetings with the kids and the moms (one family at a time) to work on the workbook with them and make the mom and the kid talk to each other.

One of the kids I worked with, Kelvin, is very enthusiastic about the book. He is 7 years old and his body constitution actually corresponds to a 7 year old kid; his mom is a tailor and his aunt is a teacher. His mom speaks fluent English and Kelvin can also understand most of the things written in the workbook which means I don´t need to bring Edem with me to translate the book or what I say to them. Whenever we are working in the workbook Kelvin immediately answers the questions and makes the exercises, whether it’s a drawing or a topic to talk about with his mom.  Both of them can comfortably talk about it and he was the first one finishing the workbook.

Blaise is another kid participating. He is 9 years old but his body constitution corresponds to a 6 years old kid. His mom is also a tailor but she barely speaks English which means Edem has to come with me to translate. Even though he is 9 years old and he is supposed to know how to write and read English he can´t do it. I was there for 45 min trying to make him answer some questions that were part of the workbook exercise and he didn´t say more than 10 words during the whole time.

The difference between them? Kelvin is a “private school kid” and Blaise is a “public school kid”.

This is the school Balise attends:

05/09/2012