Xavier Jesuit School in Cambodia held a safeguarding workshop for the school community. This news was originally shared in Xavier Jesuit School’ Newsletter .

Although every year, school staff should sign XJS Safeguarding Children Policy Statement but still in daily lives, where the dignity and rights of children stay and how to safeguard it. All staff chose one day to join the full-day Workshop.

Ms.Prak Chankroesna, who has been dedicated to child safeguarding for 12 years, facilitated the whole Workshop. Along with the basic explanation of Children’s rights and infringement, the teachers had time to reflect on what «children’s rights» they knew and how to protect them. Each chapter had sessions to reread XJS Child Protection Policy using the knowledge that the Workshop just covered. Also, there were three big discussion sessions to brainstorm and organize how to help children as teachers and school community members in cases where the child’s right is violated. The facilitator also joined to give feedback to each group.

After the Workshop, people seemed proud and more confident about what they needed to do next. «It was nice to talk with my colleagues on concepts (of children’s rights and violation of it) and things that I only knew in text,» said Sreynoch, a secondary school teacher. «In particular, it was a good opportunity to think about solutions together and concretely think about how to help students as a teacher, something that might happen in school sites.»

Children are the ones who also need to know what their rights are and what can violate their rights. Children’s rights can be featured as something that adults should protect, but at the same time, children should also know how to defend themselves. Last June 24th, Xavier Jesuit School held a small workshop on «Child Rights» for middle school students. Starting with this initiative, XJS will continue cultivating a respectful and caring culture among the school community.