'Concrete Angels' reach out to save children

"The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil - but because of those who look on and do nothing about it".

- Albert Einstein.

The Concrete Angels Foundation with socially deprived children

Concrete Angels at a program

A group of students from Holy Family Convent (HFC)Bambalapitya, led by Shiandra Gooneratne who had been selected to represent the school and Sri Lanka at the South Asian Finals of Horlicks Wizkids 2014, formed a foundation called "The Concrete Angels Foundation" at HFC to raise awareness on prevention of sexual abuse of children.

"Yes, they're angels; they're beautiful, charming and innocent. But the ways of the world have compelled these little angels who have lost their voices and are forced to keep to themselves the trauma that some of them go through, to be ignored, hated, broken, looked down upon and are hard and concrete.

But yes, they still are angels," says the founder of the newly formed group who believes that they need to break through the hard cover and save little children's innocence by teaching them how situations such as sexual abuse aren't something that have to be hidden. Two weeks was all it took for over 100 students above 13 years to sign up to be a part of the foundation and show their enthusiasm to reach out to those who are deprived of something they have; the in-depth knowledge and education about the gravity of a situation where a child is made a victim of sexual abuse and how this innocence can cost him/her a lifetime.

The foundation's primary focus is towards physically, socially and mentally deprived children, as they believe they lack knowledge about the subject.

Throughout the past two weeks, the large number of girls in the movement was divided into groups where each group would carry out a different program. From one as small as a t-shirt painting to a visit made outstation, the members' eagerness to fulfill the society's objectives was indeed marvellous.

Awareness programs for parents and children living in the slum areas of Wadduwa and Moratuwa, a day at the MJF centre in Moratuwa, visits to St. John's Girls Home in Moratuwa, Ma Sevana Moratuwa and Sarvodaya Suwasetha in Awissawella were some of the programs they carried out.

Furthermore, two seminars were held in collaboration with the Rotary Club of Moratuwa for Pre-school teachers as well.

The girls who engaged in these activities thought of ways other than lectures to create awareness by thinking 'out of the box' and having an approach through which others would be largely influenced.

Therefore, these program visits consisted of arts and crafts, games, speaking activities, group discussions, role play and drama.

The subject area being a very sensitive one, the first milestone was to make the children comfortable enough to open up-which they did by first teaching them through fun activities such as crafts and discussions as to how important each child is, yet how some people out there tend to take this value away from an individual.

Various news stories and incidents were discussed to prove such situations and then moved on to the 'shout-run-tell' concept through which we all came to the conclusion that it was the most effective way to deal with such situations.

The power of a word and getting rid of the taboo was then taught through simple speaking activities which were followed by outdoor games to boost up their physical sense and the day's program was concluded by a role play by the members and then group dramas regarding the topic were performed by the children whom they visited.

Thus, the groups succeeded in teaching children about child sexual abuse in a very child-friendly manner which made both parties content about the job well done. - Rasika