Rekindling existing partnership with the Department of Social Welfare and Development through the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps), more than 50 staff from its regional offices attended a two and a half days of training on child sexual abuse prevention (CSAP) facilitated by Stairway Foundation, Inc. last September 9-13.
The education and conditional cash transfer initiative, which targets 3 million Filipino households, is inspired by the Brazilian Bolsa Familia program. Seeing the huge potential for incorporating CSAP into the general program of 4Ps, Stairway conducted initial sessions for a number of key staff from 2010 up until last year. However, there had been a gap in cascading the said trainings to the program’s beneficiaries.
For this particular training, the participants were introduced to the concepts of Children’s Rights, the United Nation Convention on the Rights of the Child and Child Sexual Abuse. In the middle of the training, the 4Ps workers had the chance to watch Stairway’s longest-running stage play Cracked Mirrors. After watching, most of the participants shared their thoughts and expressed an overwhelming response to the presentation. At the end of the training, they were asked to formulate a plan of action for implementation in their respective communities.
In totality, Stairway’s expertise on the topic helped the participants gain leverage in handling trainings regarding child sexual abuse. The partnership has been fortified by a Memorandum of Agreement, which goes into the details of promoting CSAP thru the Family Development Sessions of the Pantawid program.This move hopes to transform the family beneficiaries of 4Ps into more aware and sensitive households towards children’s rights.