CLCP Workshop with Students

[Tricia Francis]

Community Life Competence Workshop with Hinterland Students

I facilitated a three days’ workshop on Rights of the Child using the CLC process with some 40 students in a hinterland village and I learn so many things from these students.
These young Adults knew what they wanted to address, in our first exercise we did hopes and concerns and I never saw so many similar concerns all at once and when I saw it, I felt their passion towards these concerns.

Here is a bit of what transpired, I shared out a heart shaped paper to each student and ask them to share from their heart something that concerns them as young people and one hope they have.

Not one of them knew of this exercise or had knowledge of what each other wrote and of course they were reluctant to share what they wrote at first but with a little motivation they all shared and here is what surprised me, most of the concerns was on RAPE, out of 40 students 25 said rape, each in their own way, some just wrote the word RAPE, why are old men Raping young girls?, why can’t they do something about Rape?, people should be arrested for Rape etc,.
Teenage pregnancy was the next set of concerns and I figured that came out of being rape and getting pregnant, then peer pressure and employment.

When I saw this written on their little heart cut paper I felt their pain and they were surprise too to see how many of them wrote and had the same concerns and I understand why they were so reluctant to share because they didn’t want to be that person to address this issue.

But I see the bravery in these young adults, they were given that green light to express something that concerns them and they took this opportunity and said it and these concerns came from both males and females. And this shows that the males are concern about what is happening to their fellow young women in the village. At the closing of the workshop the students did a presentation for the Regional Education Officer, and other administrative representatives.

The three days’ workshop was positive, successful and an eye opening workshop for the participants, facilitators and Regional Administration. The regional administration received a full report on the workshop and made a promise at the end of the workshop to work on addressing the concerns that were mentioned and to work more with the young adults.

[Tricia Francis]

Ok Rituu will post for you :-)

[Rituu B. Nanda]

Thanks Tricia for this post. Is it heartening to see engagement of boys and men!  Would you like to share the action points of this workshop? Would you have a follow up? Was it possible to do a SALT visit? I want to learn from your experience.