By Anoka Latchmiah
Learners of St Mary’s Development and Care Centre (DCC) led a march at the weekend to mark Child Protection Week. The young learners were accompanied by their teachers, parents and community members, as well as partner organisation, Eluxolweni Child and Youth Care Centre.
The St Mary’s DCC is an aftercare that offers extra literacy, psycho-social support and parent skills programmes. The organisation has 160 children enrolled, who range from ages 5 to 15.
Annually, the DCC has a Child Protection Week event, focusing on the concerns facing children enrolled in the aftercare for that particular year. For 2024, the primary issue that the DCC has outlined is the uncertainty children face when going through puberty, along with understanding consent.
Glyneise Arries, the Child Protection Officer at DCC, said that crime is a widespread concern they wanted to highlight at the march. She said: “In our community, drug usage is prevalent, which can be related to the crime that we experience.”
The march began at the DCC, where the children enrolled at the facility held up posters expressing essential messages to the community. Parents held their children’s hands as they chanted to Soccer City. Onlookers viewed the spectacle in amazement, some shouting in support. Smhart Security officers guided the participants for the duration of the march.
Once seated at the amphitheatre, the children demonstrated various scenarios regarding consent, gender-based violence, and the importance of a family network. Arries previously spoke to the extent of this family network for children. She said, “Let a child know five people they can trust, who they can always talk to because sometimes a child doesn’t feel comfortable talking to their parent.”
After the children’s demonstration, various speakers discussed crime prevention, gender-based violence and the importance of communication between parents and their children. One such speaker was Simon Valentine, a Smhart security officer who was once a child enrolled at the DCC. He implored the children to stay on the right side of the law and motivated them to see their potential. He exclaimed, “You are the future of tomorrow.”
The prevailing message of the event, which is also the DCC’s slogan for this year, is that ‘Every child matters’.
