Brief History (page 2)

2014

We completed a new workshop for maintenance work and woodwork classes for the children in residence, and started construction of a small bakery. As part of the EACY program, we launched the theater production “The Lorax” based on the story by Dr. Seuss. The impressive sets and props were all built at Stairway, a project that took more than a year to complete. SFI Creative Director, Monica, created and directed the play, and the children in our family home were the performers. They had become a resource, reaching hundreds of local children with an important environmental message. The SAS bangka started operations after some delays and additional work, but the concept proved excellent. The Break the Silence (BTS) program continued to expand, and a new collaboration with the Department of Education came into effect. New partners were added to the BTS Network, and we expanded our reach to organizations in new countries. With significant support from the Firetree Fund, our Educational Assistance program reached new dimensions with more than 200 scholars in the local community. Yale University joined the Youth for Change program. In Denmark, Tune Nyborg stepped down as chairperson to re-focus on his role as proposal writer and link to DANIDA. Soren Sorensen accepted the offer to return to the position in transition to a new chairperson.

2013

We entered into a partnership with the Marshall Foundation and opened up a new environmental program entitled EACY, Environmental Awareness for Children and Youth. Part of the program is the Sea Adventure School (SAS), and we started to build a 50-foot bangka to become a floating classroom. We celebrated 20 years of support from Roedkilde Gymnasium, and another Danish High School, Roedovre Gymnasium, joined in with their generous support. We added breakfast to the feeding of the indigenous students in Baclayan. Furthermore, with the support of our local friend, Doctor Francis, we introduced a health component to the program, featuring bi-weekly medical check-ups for the entire Baclayan community. With an expansion supported by DANIDA, the Break the Silence Campaign continued to grow. We continued the close collaboration with the National Police and received yet another official recognition. The international trainings also increased significantly, and Stairway was chosen as the regional trainer for KNH in their global effort to introduce Child Protection Policies among their partners worldwide. The Break the Silence reach included Thailand, Cambodia, Malaysia, Vietnam, India and Nepal. The Family Home program ran smoothly with 14 boys in residence. Harvard University joined the Youth for Change Program. We obtained an interest-free loan from Firetree Fund to make the final payment for our land, which enabled us to finally receive the title to the land we had been renting for the past two decades.

2012

We expanded our collaboration with the law enforcement to include the Philippine National Police Academy, which meant that all future PNP officers would undergo Stairway training on child protection, with special focus on child sexual abuse and exploitation. We have completed the construction of new quarters for our children in residence, including dormitories, a classroom, a library, a computer lab, and ample outdoor space for recreation. Break the Silence International entered India through a partnership with ADM Capital Foundation. We ran a full year of the feeding program at Baclayan Elementary School for indigenous children, resulting in attendance more than tripling. Further, we also secured school supplies, slippers, and raincoats for all the students. We started a partnership with Swedish VEM.

2011

2011 passed with new concepts and ideas transformed into programs and activities. It was another year shaped by innovation and creativity, a year where we launched our nationwide Break the Silence Campaign, where we opened an office in Manila, where we reached and trained every single police cadet in all of the country’s 17 regional Police Training Institutes, where our animations and trainers on child protection reached into 6 Southeast Asian countries, and it was the year that our Youth for Change camps expanded to include schools from 3 continents and 6 nations. For the first time we hosted a group of students from our long time strong support, Roedkilde Gymnasium. We opened the Baclayan Community Assistance Program with support from AAP, including intensified work on the organic farm and a feeding program for the children in the local school. We also opened Orange House, another dormitory guest house to support the even increasing level of activities at the Learning and Resource Center. In Denmark, Soren Sorensen passed the chairperson position to Tune Nyborg.

2010

The “Break the Silence International Campaign against Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation” took off after the completion of our latest film, “Red Leaves Falling”, and we entered into a focused partnership with Hong Kong-based ADM Capital Foundation to further develop and execute the campaign. We trained and worked alongside networks of partners in Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, Burma, and Malaysia. “Red Leaves Falling” was dubbed into Khmer, Thai, Vietnamese, Burmese, and Malay Bahasa. All of our three animations were made accessible to the deaf community by providing sign language insets, both in the American and Filipino Sign Language. Our advocacy theatre play “Cracked Mirrors” continued to move and shake hearts and souls throughout the year. Students from Singapore American School arranged for the Stairway theatre troupe to visit Singapore for a line of performances and sessions of direct interaction with students and faculty at the school. The convincing power of the theatre was also demonstrated earlier in the year when the head of the Police National Training Institute visited Stairway. Upon viewing “Red Leaves Falling” and “Cracked Mirrors”, General Sarmiento declared his full support for our training and advocacy program for the police. Consequently, we entered into all of the 17 police training institutes around the nation, and we received another official recognition from the National Police. We developed and submitted a proposal for a 5-year project with the aim to establish and capacitate a large number of Child Sexual Abuse Prevention Resource Centers in different parts of the Philippines. The proposal was approved by our partners from DANIDA in November. Stairway was nominated for the Philippine Inter-Agency Council against Child Pornography, and was invited by several groups as a resource on online safety. We also ran a series of workshops on how to understand and use the newly ratified anti-child pornography law. “Red Leaves Falling” was screened at and received raving reviews at the Human Rights and Sex Trafficking Film Forum by the Boston Initiative to Advance Human Rights at the Brattle Theatre & Harvard Kennedy School, Cambridge, MA. We started a project with the Philippine Police Department for Women and Children to improve on their existing setup in a number of police stations in Metro Manila, where we created more child-friendly spaces. With the visit of 20 students from the Singapore American School (SAS), we added a new partner for our Youth for Change Program. The Singapore School left a large donation to help in the construction of a new children’s dormitory. We purchased a small lot (174 sqm) along the river in Aninuan to secure our deep well and a reliable water supply for Stairway and several local families in the community. We made a needs analysis on the children in the Mangyan School in Baclayan, which is neighboring to our 11 hectares of land in the mountains. We took a strong interest in the children, the school, and the community, as we realized that the attendance rate at the school was significantly below 50%, and the students' academic performance ranked far below the national average. The conclusion of the analysis was that children did not go to school because they were hungry. We used the research data to develop a school and community program, which would initially address the children’s nutrition and health conditions, as many were malnourished. The long-term objective was to significantly improve the quality of the children’s education. Last but not least, we planted several hundred trees on our land in Baclayan. The next step will be to establish an organic vegetable garden that will help provide food for the feeding program in the school and for the Stairway Learning and Resource Center, while at the same time function as a model garden in the community. We signed an agreement with the owners of the land in Aninuan to purchase the land in installments over three years.

2009

The year was filled with many significant events and developments in terms of programs, activities and networking, along with a continuous process of consolidating our organization. We completed our third animation toolkit “Red Leaves Falling” and launched it in collaboration with UNICEF as part of a grand anti-child pornography campaign.

• We developed a new website, which over a time period of 6 months had more than 26,000 visitors
• We toured in Europe with a campaign against child pornography, featuring Red Leaves Falling as well as the theater piece Cracked Mirrors
• We started a new collaboration with the US Peace Corps, having their volunteers work with us
• We completed our new theater/ multi-function building, and the stage was opened in style with no less than 4 different, and all very great, performances over the year
• We received an award from the Philippine National Police for our service in training their personnel, and we further expanded this collaboration to include a large number of training schools for cadets around the country
• We concluded a one-year pilot project in which we aimed to empower eight partner NGOs to become resource centers for the prevention of child sexual abuse. Our goal was to bring this project to new heights with a lot more partners over the coming years
• We purchased an additional 4.5 hectares of land adjacent to the 6.4 hectares in Baclayan
• We finished and opened the Yellow House, a dormitory for children and professionals doing camps, workshops and trainings at our Learning and Resource Center.

2008

Due to great success, the “Cracked Mirrors” Tour and Campaign continued. We experienced serious setbacks in the production of the “Red Leaves Falling” animation film and ultimately terminated our contract with the studio we had hired to produce the film. In the middle of the year, the production got back on track, but with delay. We concluded the 3-year CSAP program under DANIDA, KNH, Leger, and UNICEF with an outcome way over the expected, and a wealth of experience to build on. After evaluation, we entered a new partnership agreement with the same donors for a one-year pilot focusing on the training and capacity building of eight partner NGOs. This marked the inception of the Break the Silence Network, which would later evolve into the Break the Silence National Network. The SFI organizational development process continued with the establishment of three pillars under the program, each with its own head. We purchased 6.4 hectares of land in the mountains of Barangay Baclayan, with the intention of developing a small organic farm.  

2007

“A Good Boy” and “Daughter” were translated into Cebuano and Thai. The Stairway workshops were developed further and divided into several modules based on feedback and experience from the trainers. SFI gave training to a network of child caregivers under the World Concern Network in Bangkok, and “Cracked Mirrors” opened an International Conference for Child Protection Agencies in Thailand. Mr. Soren Sorensen and his wife, Vibeke, visited Stairway, which led to Soren accepting the position of chairperson on the board of Stairway Denmark, as Katrine Nyholm wanted to step down. The SFI Family Home Program continued to operate with very satisfying results. Supported by UNICEF, “Cracked Mirrors” went on tour in the Philippines reaching thousands of students, teachers, social workers, church groups and law enforcers. With strong input and support from KNH and Stairway Denmark, SFI allocated more time and resources to organizational development to become a well-established and recognized Learning and Resource Center for Children’ Rights. We finished the year opening a new building with a large kitchen, office and function room/training space.

2006

“A Good Boy” received international recognition with awards from the Seoul International Cartoon and Animation Festival and from a Human Rights Award in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Work started on the third animation, “Red Leaves Falling”, which would conclude the trilogy. We expanded our team with additional personnel in the Advocacy and Training Program, further strengthening a three-year training program supported by DANIDA, KNH, Leger, and UNICEF. Throughout the year, more than a thousand professionals and around 25.000 children were reached in Calapan and Silang City as a result of SFI trainings. “Cracked Mirrors” opened an International Law Enforcement Conference on Technology-Related Crimes against Children in Bangkok. The conference was followed by a 2-week training program on online safety for children, facilitated by the British Police Agency's Child Exploitation and Online Protection Command (CEOP), and sponsored by Microsoft. Two SFI personnel attended the training, marking the beginning of a long collaboration between SFI and CEOP on online safety.

2005

We continued the Family Home program for particularly endangered street children, children with tuberculosis, and children out of detention centers. At the same time, we intensified our training of staff on child sexual abuse prevention within government rehabilitation centers. Our social workers and psychologists also served the children directly with workshops for prevention and aftercare counseling. In September, we launched our 2nd animation, “A Good Boy, A Story of Pedophilia,” at the Republic of Malate Theater in front of an audience of approximately 400 invited guests from government and non-government organizations. The advocacy theater piece, “Cracked Mirrors”, performed by young people who used to be in Stairway’s program, was officially launched at the same event, which was covered by TV News in the Philippines and Singapore. “A Good Boy” was translated and dubbed into Tagalog and Khmer, and “Daughter” was translated into Nepali. Both animation toolkits were translated and dubbed into Spanish and French. All the work with the translations was done entirely on a volunteer basis with help from the International School Manila and the European International School. Dennis Cham and HIT Productions generously donated facilities and technical assistance. We held our first international training at Stairway, and we sent two social workers to Cambodia to train our partners in Chab Dai. Chab Dai managed to utilize the animation toolkits broadly and widely through their network of child care agencies and through government collaborations. Aside from continuing the collaboration with the International School Manila, we expanded the Youth for Change Activity with the visit of 20 students from the American College of Cairo, Egypt. This program ran for 3 years until the American State Department declared the Philippines a high-risk travel destination.