Lebanon Children’s Council stars in new awareness campaign
During the Marjeyoun community summer festival, fifteen children from World Vision’s Children’s Council mingled among hundreds of visitors coming from neighbouring villages and distributed informative flyers, posters and balloons.
“The message we want to give to our parents and all our community is to stop forcing children to work because it will affect their body and their morale,” said Chehab, 13. “Those children might resent their parents and feel lonely in this world; that is why we want to stop this by all means.”
With the support of a graphic designer, children designed the campaign materials, came up with a logo and a slogan of “You want to help him? Protect him”, and set up a booth at the community festival fair. For the last three months, they had been participating in World Vision workshops to learn more about child labour and child trafficking in Lebanon.
“We worked so that the [materials] are very nice and appealing,” said Rachelle, 14. “The shirt which was designed from colored paste in the child labour poster was my own work and I hope we will be part of the next project as well”.
“It was a very nice experience. We were distributing balloons that have slogans on them to protect children and inviting parents to take part in the responsibility of implementing this,” said Christina, 13. “We felt responsible for spreading out the culture of protecting children and we were very happy with this experience.”
Despite being a pressing problem, for many, child labour is an invisible phenomenon; invisible because children work in hidden occupations and invisible because society is willing to turn a blind eye. Children are trafficked into and within Lebanon primarily for the purpose of cheap or forced labour or for sexual exploitation.
“We have identified child trafficking as a main concern issue within our advocacy strategy and we are investing in children and young people based on the belief that they are innovative and driven to work for the promotion of social justice,” said Carla Lewis, World Vision Anti-Trafficking Officer.
Making child labour and trafficking a visible problem to everyone means that people will no longer be able to ignore these children.
Marjeyoun children also shared with the community a list of recommendations such as having a help-line for exploited children or ensuring compulsory education for children until the age of nine.
-Ends-
“The message we want to give to our parents and all our community is to stop forcing children to work because it will affect their body and their morale,” said Chehab, 13. “Those children might resent their parents and feel lonely in this world; that is why we want to stop this by all means.”
With the support of a graphic designer, children designed the campaign materials, came up with a logo and a slogan of “You want to help him? Protect him”, and set up a booth at the community festival fair. For the last three months, they had been participating in World Vision workshops to learn more about child labour and child trafficking in Lebanon.
“We worked so that the [materials] are very nice and appealing,” said Rachelle, 14. “The shirt which was designed from colored paste in the child labour poster was my own work and I hope we will be part of the next project as well”.
“It was a very nice experience. We were distributing balloons that have slogans on them to protect children and inviting parents to take part in the responsibility of implementing this,” said Christina, 13. “We felt responsible for spreading out the culture of protecting children and we were very happy with this experience.”
Despite being a pressing problem, for many, child labour is an invisible phenomenon; invisible because children work in hidden occupations and invisible because society is willing to turn a blind eye. Children are trafficked into and within Lebanon primarily for the purpose of cheap or forced labour or for sexual exploitation.
“We have identified child trafficking as a main concern issue within our advocacy strategy and we are investing in children and young people based on the belief that they are innovative and driven to work for the promotion of social justice,” said Carla Lewis, World Vision Anti-Trafficking Officer.
Making child labour and trafficking a visible problem to everyone means that people will no longer be able to ignore these children.
Marjeyoun children also shared with the community a list of recommendations such as having a help-line for exploited children or ensuring compulsory education for children until the age of nine.
-Ends-
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