“The street is a double-edged sword, it is fun to play in but, at the same time, it may contain risks and people we shouldn’t meet,” said an adolescent girl during the awareness session carried out by the SSSD Child Protection Club, in cooperation with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), at the Nabd Community Center in Salkhad, Sweida.

The session discussed the risks of playing on the street and its negative effects on adolescents.

It also gave clues to safe playing and designated places for teens to play in, using the street play “risk bar” and explaining the “tree of causes” of behaviors resulting from street playing.

At the end of the session, an adolescent boy said: “I liked the safe space so much, as I was able to play and learn in it, safely and without fear, unlike my playing on the street.”

“I’m thrilled I learned ways to integrate my brother with the rest of the kids,” said an adolescent girl who participated in the awareness sessions campaign carried out by the Syrian Society for Social Development (SSSD), in cooperation with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), under the title I Belong to You, all conducted at the Nabd Community Center in Salkhad, Sweida.

Sessions have been seasoned with a series of recreational activities for children and adolescents that embody the content of the campaign, namely to integrate people with disabilities with normal people in the community.

At the end of a session, an adolescent boy said: “I used to hear terms like ‘people with disabilities’ and ‘people with special needs’, not knowing the difference, thinking they were identical! After the sessions, however, I learned something new that enabled me to distinguish between the two terms.”

Celebrating small inspiring achievement 

“We can certainly enhance our children’s self-confidence by always trying to be coherent and reconcile with them to keep them away from all forms of violence.”

This is what a woman said during our visit to a village in the Sweida Governorate, city of Salkhad, where the Syrian Society for Social Development’s mobile team, in cooperation with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, within the Child Protection Programme, implemented a campaign under the slogan “No to Violence, Yes to Forgiveness”.

As part of the campaign in the village of al-Hariseh, we held an awareness session with caregivers on the causes and consequences of physical and verbal abuse, the great impact of this phenomenon and its repercussions on children’s behavior and their relationship with parents and with others. In the words of one of the women participants:
“We benefit a lot from the topics that are presented in the sessions which encourage each one of us to work on themselves as well as on their children, teaching them that beating is not for the strong, that no one is “stronger” than anyone else, that we can all be reconciled with ourselves and with others.”