Child protection is everyone’s responsibility. To raise more awareness of child protection, the British Council in Bangladesh organised a Child Protection seminar in Dhaka on 15 June 2017 for their Partner Schools Global Network (PSGN) to keep children safe at school environment.
PSGN School principals and leaders from all around Bangladesh were invited in this seminar and the purpose was to share Child Protection context and basic understanding with the school leaders and management to sensitise and involve them for raising awareness among children, parents and teachers in their own premises.
Siobhan King, Head of Child Protection and Eelco Vugs, Regional Child Protection Manager facilitated the session to share their knowledge and global experience in child protection. The event was hosted by Zunayed Ahmed, Deputy Director Examinations.
The seminar started with the overall update of PSGN plan in 2017 and shared how British Council can support PSGN in Bangladesh. Following that Siobhan King and Eelco Vugs delivered a timely session to promote child protection awareness and potential role of school leaders and British Council for ensuring a safe learning environment for children at schools, British Council’s premises and their home as well. They also emphasised on British Council’s Child Protection policy and procedure and why it is important for PSGN Schools. The session touched on what child protection means in our context, leading to a discussion of child protection in the partners institutions - the risks, the good practice, and the challenges. The session ended with a review and open discussion among the participants followed by Self Audit Tool Exercise by the school leaders.
British Council in Bangladesh is launching Child Protection awareness initiatives for PSGN and would provide technical support to conduct training/ workshops with school leaders, teachers, parents and students where the intention is to protect the child from potential risk in the school premises. As a fundamental responsibility, British Council in Bangladesh is also keen to provide schools any technical guidance and supervise to adopt and implement child protection policy and awareness initiatives.