My name is Albertina. I am 18 years old. I live in Zambia with my mother, my grandmother and my siblings.
I have been a sponsored child with ChildFund since I was five years old.
When I grew up, I realised I wanted to be involved in activities for young people and so I became a peer educator with ChildFund in 2013.
As a peer educator I hold meetings where I educate people in my community. I talk with and mentor people in my same age group about things like early marriage, early pregnancy, staying in school, etc.
At school, what I saw was bad. It troubled me. The majority of children who were married at my school dropped out in Grade 6. They did not continue to high school.
It hurt to see that. Although you start school at the same time and you started as many, only two or three of you complete your education.
Of all my friends who I started school with, all of them have dropped out of school. They have all married early and started having children. I saw this practice was harmful.
We all have many problems, but when you look at the girls who dropped out and got married, they have more problems.
Children who are married do not get to do the things they desire and accomplish their goals.
I believe that every person has things to be accomplished in their life.
I want to pursue journalism so that I can continue what I’m doing in the community. By working in the media, I’ll be able to reach more people than I can right now.
Move over, Avengers. The world has a new band of super heroes and they operate out of a small village on Myanmar’s border with Thailand.
Zay and his friends have formed a ChildFund Myanmar-supported group called the Super Heroes, whose role is to promote children’s rights and help protect children in their village.
“We chose that name because we are the super heroes to protect our village,” says 13-year-old, Zay.
Groups like the Super Heroes are part of a three-year child protection project in Dawei that aims to strengthen community-based child protection systems. This project is supported by the Australian Government through the Australian NGO Cooperation Program (ANCP).
Myanmar has significantly high rates of violence against children. Zarni, who oversees the child protection project in Dawei, says much of this stems from a lack of awareness about children’s rights.
“Physical abuse is prevalent in Dawei,” Zarni says.
“The main reason behind the problem is awareness. There are two parts. The caregivers don’t have the awareness and the children themselves don’t have the awareness.”
The project aims to increase community understanding by conducting sessions about children’s rights and child protection, delivering pamphlets, and setting up posters and billboards.
ChildFund also provides communities with a list of relevant child protection service providers so people know who to contact when they witness or experience violence or abuse.
“It’s effective,” Zarni says. “There are more informants than before. And there are more identified child cases than before.”
In order to strengthen these community-based child protection mechanisms, Child Protection Groups (CPG) and Child Groups (CG) are formed in the target villages.
