Chrisland schools recently held its annual Safeguarding and Child Protection Awareness Week.

The event took place across all units of Chrisland schools which include; Festac, Lekki, VGC, Opebi, Ladipo Oluwole, Ikeja, Abuja and Idimu.

The 2021 Safeguarding and Child Protection Week themed “Safeguarding and Protecting the Total Wellbeing of Learners” is geared towards enforcing Chrisland’s Child Protection Policy and ensuring students, educators and parents are enlightened on the importance of child protection and safety. The programme also aims to educate students on the various types of abuse and adequate ways to handle them.

Mrs. Oluwakemi Fajemirokun, Head, Research and Curriculum Unit/Chrisland Safeguarding Coordinator, stated that the year’s theme was chosen due to the realization that some of the after effect of the pandemic had affected the well-being of the children all over the world.

“This year’s theme was chosen after careful consideration while bearing in mind that children can be affected by the trauma associated with the Covid-19 pandemic like depression, discomfort associated with continuous use of the face mask, the loss of loved ones among other issues”.

“Some of these issues have been discovered to affect the mental and emotional well-being of the children. It’s part of our duty as a school to ensure that our children are protected, hence, our focus on their welfare, including their mental, physical, educational, social, psychological and academic well-being. When children are safeguarded in their entirety, they showcase their best”. She said.

Mrs. Fajemirokun further stated that it’s important for children to be sensitized on safety and the measures to take when faced with any difficult situation.

“We started this four years ago, where we get our children to be aware of what it means to be safeguarded and protected. Since we started, we have received a lot of accolades from parents and the general public.

“The children are informed of their rights, they know when to talk, when to react and how to respond to any form of abuse”.

As part of the activities of the Safeguarding and Child protection awareness week, there was an election of safeguarding ambassadors which comprised students from all year levels across all the school units. These set of students are outspoken and serve as safeguarding ambassadors for their year levels.

Other activities for the week included the opening of the bulletin board, talk with educators and sanitary assistants, sensitization of the new staff, seminar with children which was handled by safeguarding officers and the finale on Friday which was a class -to-class talk on the importance of safety and how to handle an unsafe or abusive situation and how to attain total well-being.