March 3, 2021
#Parental_Guidance
#Child_Safeguarding
28/02/2021 was the second weekend of a sustained campaign on child safeguarding, where a team of 20 members from SambaSports Youth Agenda and one journalist from our number One Radio Partner RADIO KAYA, facilitated and coordinated by Plan International Kenya, Kwale County,6 yet again hit the ground to hold self uplifting dialogues with parents and their children in the hinterlands areas.
It was another brilliant day where the team reached out to the parents of Bahakanda, Mrima and Kikonde villages and their adolescent children.
On reaching the venues, the teams were distributed strategically to meet all angles of our objectives. While sections of the teams were engaging the parents on positive parenting dialogues, other teams were training their adolescent children on life skills techniques, integrated with exciting games, kits and songs.
How well do you understand yourself as a parent?
Are you aware of your core parental responsibilities?
How do you manage to discipline your child, in the absence of severe corporal punishment that used to be the blanket measure of curbing indiscipline?
Parents were engaged on positive Parenting dialogues where they had a lot to share on self awareness, self esteem and anger management.
In groups of four, parents discussed on alternative approaches to punishing their children. Here, many issues were raised and finally they realized that punishing a child should not necessarily be that severe, or an end in itself. Punishment should be aimed at correcting and influencing positive behavioural change. That children should be punished depending on the gravity of mistakes committed.
Finally, parents were enlightened on how well they should understand their children as they grew up.
At least 400 grassroots community members were involved, being parents and their children, mostly of adolescent age groups. The number of parents and children captured in the dialogues were as follows:-
-Mrima 78 parents and 109 children
– Bahakanda 53(21m, 32f)parents and 95(45m, 50f) children
– Kikonde 26(7m, 19f) parents
One of the intended outcomes of these sessions will be to inspire intergenerational dialogues to discuss issues of social indiscipline among children and young people, with a view to coming up with resolutions of what action to take as a community in dealing with youth and children who are going against the social norms.
The parents felt so empowered after the sessions, that they pleaded with the teams to keep engaging them as they trusted the dialogues would surely improve their relationships with their children.
We wish to thank our partners #Plan_International_Kenya and #Radio_Kaya for this special partnership that thrusts us into the depth of contribution to our core pillar of #Inspiring_And_Influencing_
Reported by Abigael Kavithu, Salim Malumbo, Nancy Wambora and Sariah Goga.
#SambaSports
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