Wednesday, 4 November 2009
Arts and Creativity in Child Protection Work

By: Brian Jungwiwattanaporn

In August, PETA in partnership with Save the Children UK’s Regional Cross-border Project held the 1st Regional Leadership Course on Child Protection. Thirty-three participants from seven countries working in the Greater Mekong Sub-Region met in Nakhon Nayok, Thailand to engage and discuss the various cases of child protection in their own countries.


Chosen as one of the participants of this conference, I was able to work with community NGO staff members, government officials and Save the Children staff from Cambodia, China, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam, and Pakistan in a ten-day transformative experience. Together, we developed our skills and understanding in promoting the protection of children using PETA’s methods and learning techniques, discussing children’s issues while creating art and synthesizing information on child protection and exploring various art forms – using drama, dance, visual arts and sculpture along with other techniques to explore our own stories as well as the stories of the children we work with.

The training consisted of 6 modules which required us to explore the situation of children in the region: covering topics on childhood and children’s rights, child protection, building child protection systems and improving our work on protection. We also examined child protection in Thailand through field visits to organizations dedicated to helping children and migrants. Over the course of the training and after several presentations and group work, we became deeply involved with the issues.

In the process, we were able to unlock our inner-child and release our creative spirits. Many participants, just like myself, also commented on how we enjoyed learning new tools with which to engage children and their communities.

Aside from our personal discoveries, we were also focused on weaving together the story of children in the Mekong region: discussing the lives of children in our own countries, the similarity of the difficulties facing children across the area and the gaps of the various protection systems that eventually led to a dialogue on what participants could do to start overcoming and addressing these issues.

There were further sessions on topics ranging from child abuse, corporal punishment, stateless children and children in emergencies. These were followed by a session on creating an advocacy plan to support children at a national level. Underpinning these activities were the understandings reached by the participants through their involvement in PETA’s art activities.



Outside of the main curriculum, we were also able to gain practical skills and techniques in story-telling while using different mediums such as photography, videography, and shadow-theatre which enabled us more to effectively tell stories on child protection as well as provide children with the creative tools to tell their own stories.

At the end of the training, the event experienced one of its highlights as Ernie Cloma, Associate Curriculum Director of the Philippine Educational Theater Association received the Child Protection Champion award from Save the Children UK’s Cross-border Project. For over 40 years, Tito Ernie, as many would call him, has passionately conducted integrated theater arts workshops for disadvantaged children in the Philippines and abroad–inspiring many of us to do the same, to become instruments and channels for the protection and promotion of children’s rights in our own communities.

The closing ceremony brought together new friends as we shared traditional songs and dances throughout the region. Possessing new knowledge and skills, exposed to PETA’s pedagogy and supported by a new network of like-minded people, we have benefited greatly from PETA and Save the Children UK’s first leadership training.

As the project came to an end, it was possible to see the personal growth that many of us had felt, and as we bring this experience back to our communities, hopefully, stronger child protection systems will start to grow throughout the communities and across the region.

Brian Jungwiwattanaporn has spent the majority of his career working for children as a school teacher. He has taught primary school at an urban school district in the United States, a rural school in Bangladesh, and special education in Thailand. He is currently the Regional Cross-border Information Coordinator at Save the Children UK where he supports efforts to create child protection systems in the region.