Tagime
Village, Papua Province, September 2014 - It
was a rainy afternoon when I arrived in Tagime village, Jayawijaya District, to
meet with Frater Yakub Yikwa.
As I stand outside of fences that surround
his large yard, I can hear laughing and cheering despite the noise of the rain.
Inside I meet more than 30 potential village facilitators
from Klasis Gereja Kemah Injil Indonesia (GKII) Tagime, a Christian Church, who have come together to be
trained on the Creating Connection Module which aims to build a safe and strong
community.
I cannot understand the conversation because
the facilitators use the native language Bahasa Lani, but
it becomes clear to me why they laugh when drawing a human body. The
facilitators become even shier when questioned about how the body changes
during puberty, what happens during menstruation and how they understand and
manage the changes in their emotions. I
increasingly understand how important it is for the facilitators and especially
for their children to talk about these taboo topics so they can better protect
themselves from sexual harassment and violence.
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| A women’s
group drawing human body and identifying sensitive areas of the body © UNICEF Indonesia/2014/Tamanbali |
According to the National
Socio-Economic Survey on Violence against Women and Children from 2006, Papua
Province had the highest prevalence of violence against women and children in
the country. This includes sexual,
physical and psychological violence. People’s beliefs and the local tradition
prohibit sexual relationships outside of marriage, however, many cases of STI and HIV among yong people, many
girls fall pregnant before they marry and there are many cases of sexual
harassment in
school.
Based on a Knowledge, Attitude and Practice study
undertaken by UNICEF in 2011 conducted in Jayapura, Jayawijaya and Keerom districts, parents still
believe that physical punishment is the best way to discipline their children,
and many children think that they deserve such punishment whenever they are
naughty and disobedient. At school, many children feel pressurized and threatened
when they don’t perform well. As a consequence, many children drop out,
simply because they are afraid of going to school.
In 2012, UNICEF started
using the Creating Connection Module
to build safe and strong communities and
the Positive Discipline Module to
provide teachers with an alternative to corporal punishment. The module
provides creative ways of teaching and games that can be used by teachers to
make the classroom and the overall learning process more enjoyable for
children. And it helps teachers to refrain from using corporal punishment
through a sequence of responses they can use to manage misbehaviour in the
classroom. The module further uses a social and emotional learning approach to
help children develop life skills, to question the negative effects of
violence, and to develop alternative problem-solving and help-seeking
strategies. Both modules have been developed by Melbourne University. They are
part of UNICEF’s Violence Prevention Programme.
Between 2012 and 2013,
UNICEF, together with the Provincial and
District Ministries of Women
Empowerment and Child Protection, The Provincial and
District Education Offices, and Cenderawasih University,
tested these modules in three sub-districts in Jayawijaya including Wamena Kota,
Kurulu, and Sogokmo. Based on the
findings, UNICEF now implements the programme at community level, together with a local faith based organization World Relief Wamena in Jayawijaya District.
Twenty local churches in Wamena Kota, Kurulu, Tagime and
Taginery have committed to participate in the programme.
At the airport, I coincidentally meet
with Ibu Ida Carolina Sadi, the Principal of the school SD Inpres Kulitarek and also as District Facilitator of
Education Office of Jayawijaya District.
We talk about how excited she was when UNICEF first developed the Positive Discipline Module. Ibu Ida decided
to immediately test it in her school. She made copies of the training module
and organized in-house training sessions with school principals, teachers, and other staff in her school cluster.
 |
| With Ibu
Ida Carolina Sadi, the Principal of SD Inpres Kulitarek and District
Facilitator of Education Office of Jayawijaya District. © UNICEF Indonesia/2014/Tamanbali |
As I fly home, I feel glad to see and
experience the positive progress of how these modules have been tested and are now
being used to educate the community and the schools. Thank God we have passionate
people like Ibu Ida and Pendeta Yakub Yikwa
that have so much energy and passion to create a safer and better environment
for children to grow-up either through ‘positive discipline’ in schools, or by creating
a safe and strong community by introducing the
Creating Connection Module. I
am looking forward to translate these modules into other local languages used
in other sub-districts and to start introducing to and train more facilitators.
