Patmos School was grateful to Medics Without Borders (MSF) who recently sent a community outreach team to the school.  The team conducted a week long course on Gender Based Violence and children from all the classes were involved in  age appropriate sessions.

 

MSF have been working in Kenya since 1987 and they have been working on sexual and gender based violence (SGBV) in  Mathare for over a decade where they have become well known.

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Sexual and gender-based violence is rife in Nairobi's second-largest slum, Mathare, where an estimated 300,000 people live in cramped conditions in roughly half a square mile.  An MSF assessment in 2017 concluded that the burden of violence on health and mental health in the area was comparable in many ways to the most violent settings of Central America and Colombia.

 

The MSF community outreach team perform educational puppet shows  to primary schools about sexual violence.  Theatre is a key medium for getting important messages across to young children, especially on subjects still considered very much taboo. There is still a great deal of stigma associated with sexual violence  and MSF is working to try and raise awareness about it, particularly among secondary school students.

 

These  theatre shows can be very powerful so much so that by the end, children are able to recite the MSF freephone number they should call if they ever need to and  the teachers are asked to continue to relay this important message to the children.

 

It is heart breaking that 50 per cent of sexual violence cases seen are children under 18, with half of those aged under 12

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