Advocating Children’s Rights and Preventing Sexual Violence Against Children is a 3-year project of CAMELEON Association implemented in Western Visayas. It makes use of innovative tools and methodologies in advocacy for child rights such as forum theatre and circus shows, in addition to children workshops, games, grassroots activities, trainings, conferences, and national reports. Two groups of child abuse survivors are actively engaged as front runners in this project: the Voice of CAMELEON’s Children (VCC) and CAMELEON’s Youth Health Advocates. This strongly impacts the design of the project, as the audience is even more responsive to the advocacy actions on child abuse when presented by survivors who share their personal testimonies and reconstruction stories.

A peer to peer approach in awareness raising is also utilised in this project as an innovative strategy for empowering children and youth. This approach is successful as the youth are even more receptive to information when disseminated by people of their own age. Advocating is also seen as therapeutic for the ambassadors and the project measures how beneficial this is in their reconstruction and what conditions are necessary to make it helpful to them.

The project also launches research on the attitudes of communities towards sexual abuse in order to analyse the cultural factors that give leeway to abuse. Through the years, it has been observed that there is a silent tolerance of abuse in some communities which may lead to non-reporting of its occurrence and to the persistence of the problem. The results of this analysis are expected to allow CAMELEON to improve its awareness-raising actions in order to better fight false representations and prejudices. CAMELEON’s main goal with this project is to initiate a change in mentalities, thereby reducing the number of abuse cases and at the same time increasing its reporting.

“As we struggle to fight, 

To put an end to this pandemic, 

Let us also end the danger, 

Our children suffers.” 

 

SAFE AT HOME?  

By: Francess Chyrss Kathleen Tan, Project Participant 

Link to project objectives | Experiences & Achievements 

• Are children and youth (peer to peer approach) effective in advocating for Children’s Rights?And against teenage pregnancies? 
• Is advocatingon child abuse therapeutic for the survivorsengaged in this kind of activities? 

• What are the attitudes of communities towards sexual abuse in communities? 
  

These were the questions that guided Cameleon Association, Inc. (CAMELEON) throughout their Innovate & Learn journey. Through hard work, hand-in-hand with young girls, the project was able to achieve the following: 

• Through the different creative and strategic advocacy trainings and activities, CAMELEON was able to raise awareness and amplify the rights and issues of children, especially on the prevention of violence against children. 
  

• They were able to form and establish partnerships with major government agencies such as the Department of Education, Department of Social Welfare and Development, National Police Regional Women and Children Protection Desk, National Police Commission, Prosecutors Office and major children’s rights network in the country in ensuring and strengthening current implementation of policies protecting the rights of the children. 
  

• They were able to explore and engage partnership with media (broadcast) to reach out to grassroots communities and attend national events to expand their reach. 
  

• Moreover, the rightsholders group were provided with different creative opportunities such as spoken poetry, painting contest, vlogging, peer online sharing which mostly focused on self-expression, gaining confidence, mental well-being, and children’s protection. 

As mentioned in their key achievements, a highlight of their project was their strong commitment to network-building. Along the way, they were able to nurture connections with the local government and national and international NGOs which have significantly increased their visibility. A few examples of this endeavor are below: 

• CAMELEON was invited to give a talk during an annual convention of 2000 secondary school students that was organized by the Department of Education Iloilo Province. During the said activity, topics such as signs of children who are possibly abused and reporting of cases were discussed. 
  

• To encourage reporting of child abuse cases, CAMELEON, together with the Philippine National Police Regional Women and Children Protection Desk, Regional Sub-committee for the Welfare of Children, Child Rights Network and Department of Social Welfare and Development Region VI, made an infographic that contains the hotline numbers of the different PNP offices in Region VI. This was posted on social media so that the general public will be informed where they can report cases.  
• CAMELEON is also the regional coordinator for the Visayas of Child Rights Network, a national coalition of organizations that are actively involved in legislative advocacy at the House of Representatives and Senate of the Philippines. During the online meeting of the network, CAMELEON representative voiced out that child sexual abuse should be included in the main agenda. It was included in the publications of the network along with Online Sexual Exploitation of Children.  

An inspiring journey it was and there were hurdles in between. For now, the fight continues and as they move on, they bring with them their inspiration—the young girls at the core of the advocacy. Here are some of the moving poems the girls have shared: 

Future plans 

Following through the success of the project, CAMELEON will be conducting researches and surveys with the help of their partners to make their initiatives more inclusive, needs-based, and data driven.