Learning through games: Child Rights and Child Protection Training


Children are a very vulnerable group. Their dependence on adults and their need for care make them even more vulnerable. Many factors support increasing a child’s vulnerability. Displacement, separation from family and community, losing a parent or a loved one, and losing home and possessions are all factors that can endanger a child’s life. The lack of safety and security and reliance on humanitarian assistance also means they become exposed to violence, exploitation, abuse, and other injustices.

Two sets of 2 days long combined Child Rights and Child Protection training program for project participants of Sunakothi and Chhampi was organized by CHFN in partnership with Building Strong Families. The training mainly focused on the protection of children and provide awareness on child rights. The overall objective of the training was to strengthen knowledge, skills, and necessary action of family members & children on the issues of Child Rights & Child Protection to prevent and respond to violence, abuse, exploitation, and neglect of children.
The participants learned about their role regarding the rights of the child, the forms of child abuse, and learned how to protect their children from abuse. Also, children learned how to protect themselves from abuse.

In between the training session, a meaningful game was organized in which 3-4 participants participated at the beginning. Each participant sat in a circle maintaining some gaps with each other. They were given tags as representatives of different sectors who worked in the field of child rights and child protection. A participant called as a representative held a thread and tied in his finger and passed the thread to another representative. Another representative also tied the thread in his finger and passed it to another. This process was repeated a couple of times. A net was created while this process was completed. Then 3-4 balloons represented as children were thrown into the net. Everyone could see that none of the balloons could stick up in the net but all of them fell off the net. Again, the representatives sat in a circle but the second time, there were more representatives who sat in a circle. The same process of passing the thread was carried out. Finally, a thick net was formed and when 3-4 balloons were thrown into the net, almost all the balloons stuck in the net.

From this game, all the participants learned that if there will be many people who will come together to save children from all the danger then all of them will be able to make a strong network to protect many children. Even the family members can play an important role as a representative to protect not only their children but the children around them. This game has really helped the participants to understand their roles to save the children.


One of the participants Sapana said, “We could learn so many things from this training and mainly the game was quite interesting which opened my mind towards the roles I play and our local authorities play, to protect the children from abuse and violence.”