SL: P.E.A.C.E: CHILD CELEBRATION!

The celebration of the innocent child

Who is this child? You do not see him as you flash past in your vehicle on the great South Road from Colombo to the deep Southern coastal area. May be you will if you commute by train.
The child is there also in the North Colombo slums, in the coastal villages at Ja-ela and Negombo; in Kandy, Katugastota, Gampola; in the remote hamlets in Bandarawela, beyond the tea plantations and among those displaced from these plantations. For those who know and care the child is not invisible.

The child’s habitat is also in the beach squatter settlements devastated by the tsunami but steadily multiplying again as poverty increases unalleviated.

The child undergoes daily the trauma of poverty, of extreme and acute need and material, emotional and spiritual deprivation. But above all the child is at risk of trafficking for prostitution, pornography, exploitation.

The Mission of PEACE (Protecting Environment And Children Everywhere) is simply to protect the child, to combat the gross crimes and devastating evils of CSBC.

Once used, abused, discarded the child is not easy to rehabilitate and reclaim into society. Several programmes specially designed to combat CSEC (Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children) like Non-Formal Education, Spoken English, Vocational training skills, Leadership Building, Cookery and Hair dressing, Beauty Culture, Medical Clinics and camps are conducted.

One day of the year is kept apart by P.E.A.C.E. to “Celebrate” this child. A day for him/her to enjoy, be feted, treated to festive food and drink, to relax and unwind.

A day on which the child exhibits his/her handwork and artwork, gives a display of music, song, dance, socio-drama, produced and presented by the children in the P.E.A.C.E education and empowerment programmes.

To receive a little gift as a gracious gesture of regard and affection.

The “Celebration” is also held to commemorate the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. P.E.A.C.E. works under the auspices of the Protective Rights of Children. Usually the themes of the Socio Dramas presented by the children depict the deprivations of these Rights.

Year by year new batches of children are addressed in the P.E.A.C.E. programmes to combat CSEC. But all programme participants are drawn from these underprivileged families at the very grass roots of where the problems of trafficking, prostitution and use of minors in pornography exist.

The “Celebration” is designed to draw attention to these facts. Recently 181 Children in various P.E.A.C.E. programmes in Angulana district participated in the “Celebration” festivities held there.
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