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| Dorcas holds up her card that says 'Children have a right to play' - Photo: Naomi Njeri |
Dorcas is ten years old, attends the SOS Hermann Gmeiner Primary School in Mombasa and lives in the neighbouring SOS Children's Village. She is also a member of the SOS Children's Village Girl Guide group. At the moment, all the members of the Girl Guide group are busy preparing Christmas cards for their sponsors, donors and well wishers and amongst these cards, there is a special bunch that will be personally delivered to a group of children very dear to the girls. At the back of each of these special cards, the girls will write a short message to indicate one of the children's rights embedded in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. These cards will then be presented to their friends at Tumaini Children's Home on Universal Children's Day on 20 November 2009. Tumaini (meaning hope), is a home that takes care of children affected and living with the HIV/AIDS virus and is situated about one kilometer from the village.
Teaching about child protection
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| Dorcas plays with her younger SOS brother at the SOS Children's Village in Mombasa - Photo: Naomi Njeri |
The Girl Guides have been divided into three groups and each group is given a certain set of children's rights to write on. Dorcas is in the dik-dik (a cute wild animal) group of the club. In this group, they are making cards on the rights to play, to education and to shelter. They are also practising a song on children's rights along with Christmas carols to perform on that day. She is looking forward to it and she says that "when we visit Tumaini, I want to teach my friends about the child protection policy". Asked what she means by children's rights, Dorcas once again calls it the child protection policy (CPP)*. She further describes it as containing two things; her 'rights' and 'responsibilities'. She says, "I have a right to eat, to play, to read and to go to the hospital… it is my responsibility to perform well at school".
Celebrating in other ways
In addition to special cards that the Girl Guides are making, Universal Children's Day will be celebrated at SOS Children's Village Mombasa in other ways. The village administrator, Stella Murungi and the secretary, Loice Njeri, will join the other children in conducting a clean-up exercise in the neighbourhood. This will be in line with the theme of the day, which among other things, will aim to ensure environmental sustainability.
Last year, Universal Children's Day was marked at the village by children showing, through drama, how they can misuse their rights. In the skit, Anne and Faraji were the parents to Saidi, who misused his right to play leading to his poor performance at school, and later misery in life. The children also made drawings to express the various rights of the child.
*The Child Protection Policy of SOS Children's Villages