An SOS mother in the kitchen has prepared lunch for her children at the SOS Children's Village Poá, Brazil
I have been reading up about a project called "Listening to Children". In particular I'm interested in what Claudia Mödlagl has to say, as she is part of the research team. I first found about about Claudia from her work recording the lives of street children in Brazil. Claudia is a health psychologist and forms part of the Research Team at SOS.
- Lisa
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An SOS mother in the kitchen has prepared lunch for her children at the SOS Children's Village Poá, Brazil
I have been reading up about a project called "Listening to Children". In particular I'm interested in what Claudia Mödlagl has to say, as she is part of the research team. I first found about about Claudia from her work recording the lives of street children in Brazil. Claudia is a health psychologist and forms part of the Research Team at SOS.
This was Claudia's contribution to the conference:
SOS Children’s Villages aims to hear children’s voices all over the world and to help children be heard. In addition to child having a say about how local projects are run, children should also be involved in the overall development of the organization and in its goals for 2009 to 2016.
For this purpose, 600 children (aged 8 to 18 years) from 26 countries, who are living in an SOS Children's Village or are part of SOS Family Support, participated in the project “Listening to Children”. The project was focused on getting to know about their thoughts and evaluations regarding the services offered by SOS Children’s Villages.
The process consisted of the children, first, picking some general themes about the organisation they wanted to talk about. Then in a group, defining in more detail what they want and how they could measure if they were achieved.
Based on 26 country reports, trends in the children's views were used to help form goals for the whole charity.
In the next phase of the study, the children and young adults from Bosnia-Herzegovina and Lebanon, who also participated in the first consultation, reviewed these goals for the whole charity.
In addition to the goals for the whole charity, children were also working on goals for the national level, with the focus of improving the living conditions of children. The results have been reported back to the management and were taken into consideration in the ongoing strategic development process.
- Mary
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Young woman cutting vegetables in the kitchen in SOS Children's Village Cochabamba-Jordán, Bolivia
This story talks about a campaign that triggered children to express their opinions and feelings related to the issue of "good treatment":
SOS Children's Village Tiquipaya has recently carried out an interesting campaign known as "Buen Trato" (Good Treatment). According to the organizers, "SOS co-workers" from the village, the campaign is an initiative that aims to promote a culture of good treatment in the community inside the village.
In so doing, they carried out a two-month-plan which included several workshops for children, young adults, and co-workers of the village as well as a poll for children on the issue of what good treatment is.
The principal feature of the campaign were the two characters chosen for the event: Manolo is a cartoon with the shape of a hand: a hand that caresses, that shakes other people's hands, that calls out people, that welcomes, that says good-bye, and many other things.
Manolo does not come alone, though. He comes with Rita, a sweat cartoon that characterizes a little bird that shares closely the adventures of Manolo. But, little Rita, unlike Manolo, represents the fragility of defenseless people, particularly, children.
Part of the main activity of the campaign was to deliver a letter, written by Manolo and Rita, to each of the children and teens of the village. In the letter, the characters asked the children to express their opinions in relation to a little story:
Hello, it is a pleasure to meet you... This letter is to tell you that we want you to be our friend and help us to welcome the "Good Treatment" to the village. Also, we want to know your point of view about Rita's brother. You know... he likes giving Rita lots of candies everyday. He thinks that by doing that, she feels pleased. So, do you think this is "Good Treatment"? Please, tell us in a letter what you think about it. We look forward to hearing from you soon. Manolo and Rita
Let's look at some of the answers:
"It is no good, because it can get you sick" (Sofia, eight)
"It is not good treatment... she can get sick [...] in life, we can't exclusively live from candies, but from the food given to us by our mothers" (Pedro, ten)
"I think that candies are too bad for the teeth" (Federico, seven)
"I am afraid birds do not like candies. They only eat worms. I think the elder brother is not doing the right thing" (Katia, eleven)
"It is bad because Rita doesn't really feel well... He should give her love and happiness" (Esteban, eight)
"The little bird feels bad, because candies do not give you happiness. Lots of greetings and bye-bye!" (Jose Luis, seven)
"It is not good that her brother gives her too many candies. Candies make you wake up your worms and Rita doesn't really feel good. I think she may enjoy chicken, rice, noodles, meat and many other things, better. That's all I could write. Thank you." (Fatima, ten)
"Hello Manolo and Rita, we want you to know that we love you a lot and that it is bad for your health to eat a lot of candies. It can cause you toothache. We also want to tell you that we won't forget you. We love you a lot." (Zenobia, eight and Paola, five)
"Rita doesn't eat candies; she eats bugs; besides that, candies and more candies get you sick" (Martin, ten)
"Birds don't eat candies. I think her elder brother is not right. Rita's heart may collapse with so many candies." (Esther, nine)
It is interesting, but it seems that, for these children, good treatment goes beyond the utmost importance of food. For them, good treatment mainly relies on people's behavior and well-being.
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