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Summer vacations are fun, but sometimes it can get quite boring for kids, especially if their parents are working parents and the kids need to stay home.
That is why, this summer, Not Guilty had a summer program twice a week called Motamayezin, or You Are Unique in English.
The sessions targeted boys and girls aged 8-12, and we had sessions on boundaries, sexual abuse, gender, self-worth, anger management, Knowing yourself, Your gifts, and many other things.
The session lasts two hours each and is all activities, between games, clay, crayons, slime, and movies.
In Egypt, schools do not start until the end of September, so we still have more time to go.
Until today, we have about 30 kids who went through the program and are bringing their friends in.
We also performed those sessions with 40 Al Samery al Saleh orphanage kids.
The importance of presenting the message in a relevant and fun way is crucial for the Not Guilty team.
Links:
Her older brother abused seven-year-old Noor for years. When she tried to tell her parents, they spanked her and said that she was a liar.
She had to endure her brother's abuse in silence for two years.
She reverted to wetting her bed, which caused even more punishment.
Only when the Not Guilty team went to train the kids, Noor ventured again to open up about the abuse.
Children in villages are more prone to get sexually abused because of the close proximity in which they all live. Big-sized families commonly live in one room, with the children sleeping under their parent's bed. As kids get older, they still have no privacy making sexual abuse that might start as curiosity a silent issue.
Not Guilty goes into villages that no one else wants to go to because of the difficulty of reaching the place.
As we were going to Ezbet Iskandar, the Not Guilty team had to take a truck, then ride in the back of an open truck to reach, then walk for half an hour.
Add to this the fact that no restrooms were available. Thus, the Not Guilty team avoided drinking any fluids.
Yet, training 200 kids with anti-sexual abuse training and discovering many cases that needed follow-up made it all worth it.
The Head of the Ezba asked us to come back and train the women and the men about boundaries, sexual abuse, and the role of the husband and the wife.
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It is incredible that sometimes even the most basic of rights is denied. There are millions of refugees in Egypt. Many of them have been abused on their way to Egypt. Some have traveled many miles on foot, and others hid in the back of trucks to be able to come.
At St Joseph's Church in Zamalek, sister Teresa serves Eritrean refugees of all religions and denominations. She ministers to them physically, emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually.
Sister Teresa asked Not Guilty Inc to train Eritrean refugee children on boundaries, sexual abuse, and how to prevent and report it.
The sad thing was that most of the kids and teens had no clue that having boundaries were their right.
Learning about boundaries empowered them and set them free.
There were 200 kids and teens.
The training was interactive and had many games, videos, and group games.
Not Guilty was asked to return and do a three-day conference for 200 others: parents, teens, and kids.
Not Guilty Inc hired a translator to translate from Arabic to Eritrean. The translator, Dina had much to say. She herself said that she had learned so much that day. She never realised that having boundaries brings freedom and self respect. She ralized that NO is a good word and that it does not make her a bad person to refuse someone overstepping her boundaries.
Links:
Wednesday, August 3, 2022
Session 1 at 10 am: Ages 10-15 years old
Girls: 22
Boys: 13
Total: 35
• Activity 1: Place friends, family, and acquaintances in circular levels depending on closeness of relationship. One boy and one girl volunteered for this activity.
• Activity 2: Everybody gets up and forms a circle around one girl and then one boy moving one step closer to display the importance of physical boundaries.
• Each child then discussed how they felt as everyone moved closer according to the feelings chart
• This discussion had good engagement with the kids relating to the visual.
• One girl had a question: if someone is not able to verbally express how they feel, then how do they express themselves?
• Activity 3: Each child wrote their likes or dislikes on a paper cut-out.
• Activity 4: Each child raised either a red flag or green flag in response to a comment to indi-cate whether it was positive or negative.
• This activity had very good engagement and the kids provided their opinions on the com-ments.
• Activity 5: Pick a number or letter to puncture into a blank piece of paper to indicate how someone’s comment can hurt someone else.
• This can include comments in person or online
• One child commented that when there’s cyber bullying, particularly involving bullying how girls look or dress, that others in the community remark that the girl did it to herself, essentially victim blaming.
• Discussed action plan with the kids when any form of harassment occurs online
• Step 1: save the screenshot
• Step 2: Report it
• One of the girls stood up and summarized what was discussed in the session
• One girl stood up to comment in the end: You changed the way I think in how to set bounda-ries that people should not be upset by.
Feedback: there was good engagement from the kids especially when there was requested partic-ipation or a visual to teach the lesson. For activity 5, there was not as much understanding be-tween the activity and the point of the lesson. In each activity, there was always 1 or 2 kids who wanted to share their thoughts.
Links:
You read about Not Guilty training Eritrean refugees.
I want you to hear what they are saying following the training.
Please watch this video.
Most of those refugees have been abused on their way from Eritrea to Egypt.
They have been raped, harassed and emotionally abused.
When told about boundaries, they had never heard the word in their lives. They have been taught that it is not OK to say no, especially to an adult.
Well, no wonder most of them have been abused, bullied and harassed.
Just want you to listen to this girl after the awareness day.
Below are summary points of answers to the survey:
o Example responses Consequence of bullying and the difference between a good and bad feeling and how to solve our problems
o 7 responded “now I will be more confident
o 3 answered along the lines of: Live positively, love my children, raise my children in a better way
o Others answered: Express my feelings better, pay attention to my feelings
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