Blue Teddy Bear Campaign Expands Child Protection Effort

As reports of child abuse and violence continue to cast a shadow on the lives of Belizean children, educators are being called to the front lines of protection. Today, the Blue Teddy Bear Campaign entered a critical new phase, expanding its national effort to equip teachers with the skills needed to identify, respond to, and report cases of abuse. More than eighty teachers from schools across the country will undergo specialized safeguarding training, strengthening the network of adults responsible for keeping children safe. We stopped by the training at EP Yorke High School today where we spoke with the organizer and participants.

 

Carla Alvarez, Lead Consultant, Blue Teddy Bear Campaign

“You would know that in the first leg of the journey we were working with organizations, community-based organizations, the private sector. Now we have phased into working with the schools. The first people in contact would be the teachers. So, we are doing the training with teachers. Monday and Tuesday we did training with three high schools in Belize City and now we are starting another set of three high schools. Now they have training today and tomorrow in the Blue Teddy Bear Campaign.”

 

Paulette Gentle-Augustus, Principal, Anglican Cathedral College 

“It is very important because it gives us the opportunity for myself, the teachers, the councilors to understand what is mandated by us as teachers to do reporting when we observe child abuse. So, it is important we do that as frontline workers as well. we spend more time with these children. So it gives us more insight into identifying forms of abuse that our children may be going through.”

 

Denroy Tillett, Teacher, Anglican Cathedral College

“As educators we will be able to reach them more. We will be able to understand what they are going through, physically, emotionally, and mentally so that we can help them in the classrooms. At times we are in there, teaching and learning are not taking place, we question our teaching ability. But there are many barriers affecting them and some of them could be some of these same issues.”

 

The campaign will host trainings for parents and students in its next phase.

 

 

Attention readers: This online newscast is a direct transcript of our evening television broadcast. When speakers use Kriol, we have carefully rendered their words using a standard spelling system.

 

Watch the full newscast here: