7 News Belize

SJC Takes A Stand Against Child Abuse
posted (December 7, 2010)
Child abuse comes in all forms, physical, sexual, emotional and economical. It may not always make the news because many cases of child abuse are kept quiet or go unreported. To help break this silence and raise awareness of this issue, about a hundred SJCJC students gathered as the Literary Club launched its Young Men and Women Against Child Abuse Campaign. The interactive forum, which saw the participants sign a pledge and engage in discussion about Child Abuse, was geared towards sensitizing the students so that they take a stand against Child Abuse. Consuelo Godfrey Associate Dean for Student Affairs told us more:

Consuelo Godfrey, SJCJC Associate Dean for Student Affairs
"One of the things that they came up with was this forum and I told them it would be nice for them to share some poems as well and try to get the drummer club involve because I think as young people they need to be sharing how they feel and at the same time they can also inspire other young people to take action."

Aurelio Sanchez, SJCJC Lit Club President
"We believe that is it important that we take action in the issues that surround our community; child abuse is one that is very prevalent and we want to do our part so what we decided is - we are student club and we are here for our communities so let's do our part and share awareness with child abuse."

Denbigh Yorke, Executive Director - NOPCAN
"In general terms what abuse constitute as well as specifically to look at 2 or 3 aspects of child abuse which takes in of course the use of corporal punishment and right now there is a bill to remove corporal punishment from all our institutions including primary schools and as well look at sexual abuse and trafficking of persons for commercial sexual exploitation of children."

Andrea Polanco
"So with you sharing this information here today, what do you hope to achieve?"

Denbigh Yorke, Executive Director - NOPCAN
"Well first and foremost you want to always create awareness, but you want to go beyond that. I recognize as I walk in that the students had made a pledge, a pledge to report child abuse, a pledge to work in their communities or to work in the capacity as a student to come up with strategies as to how they can work along with others in the community to make it a child friendly society."

Consuelo Godfrey, SJCJC Associate Dean for Student Affairs
"We've been doing this a while but we just haven't had the opportunity to be able to go beyond our campus and so now this is one of the things we do through our mission 'men and women for others' so I think the lit club is actually doing this men and women for others and a lot of them have siblings at home that maybe going through abuse, they don't know what to look for, they don't know how to help and they themselves may have been victims of abuse and so how do we go about informing and educating them and inspiring them to take action, its one step towards taking down the wrongs of our society."

Aurelio Sanchez, SJCJC Lit Club President
"We are doing our part and hopefully we could inspire you to do your part, this is not something we do on our own, it's something that everyone should do, so if you have your incident with child abuse, report it, take action, this is our Belize, we want to do everything in our power to make it a good one."

In the upcoming semester, SJCJC plans to take their campaign to other Junior Colleges around the country to get young people involved through public education forums similar to the one held today.

Home | Archives | Downloads/Podcasts | Advertise | Contact Us

7 News Belize