Teaching Children to Speak Up Against Abuse

Naina Jha from Safecity conducted a POCSO workshop for students of STD IV & V at DPS World School, Patna on 22nd October 2019.

The workshop began by asking the students about the words- safety, safe and unsafe touch. Students responded by using the words good and bad touch. Naina randomly touched the hair of one boy and asked what was that? All the students replied that it was a safe touch. Naina explained to the students how that can be unsafe.
The students were taught about safe, unsafe and confusing touch. They were taught that it is important to speak up if we don’t like anything or anyone’s activity/behaviour towards us.

The students were taught about The Safety Circle. An activity was conducted wherein the students made their own ‘Safety Circles’ which were made up of their 5 most trusted people.
The students were also taught about the PANTS rule-
Privates are private
Always remember your body belongs to you
No means no
Talk about secrets that upset you
Speak up, someone can help.

The children were shown a video related to the discussion. This was followed by narrating them a story and asking questions to find out what did they understand from the story. Concluding, the students were asked to make drawings of unsafe touch based on their imagination. It was sad and shocking to see the children drawing images of incidents they had experienced or witnessed. Naina interacted with every single child to know their thoughts or story behind their drawing.