Teacher Support

Getting children out of child labor is step one. Providing them with a safe environment in which they can develop healthy and be a child again is step two. To make that happen, it is super important that our local teams, our teachers, learn specific skills to offer that safe space for kids who’ve been facing many challenges both physically and mentally due to childlabor.

we want to make sure that our teachers learn the skills to make a difference in the life’s of the children they work with.

My name is Julia

Julia is the founder of- and trainer for Train for Change. Train for Change empowers local professionals in under-resourced communities and areas affected by conflict by equipping them with the skills, knowledge and tools to help them make a change in the lives of children and youth-at risk.

Julia is a licensed child psychologist, a primary school teacher, and a university lecturer in the department of developmental psychology. Julia has completed a double bachelors degree in education and pedagogical sciences at the University of Amsterdam.

Working as a child psychologist for a local NGO in the townships surrounding Cape Town has sparked a small fire in Julia’s ambition to actively address inequality in education and mental health. Julia is dedicated to work abroad in communities where care, support, empowerment and protection for children, youth and their families are most needed. Julia will be visiting some of our locations, to train our amazing school

teams in teaching techniques and trauma-supportive teaching. To learn more about the trainings that will be provided to our teachers, you can visit www.trainforchangeinternational.com.

Why is it important that our teachers get training ?

Poverty, and it's related problems (like conflict, distance from school, or orphanhood) are some of the main causes for child labour. Child labor is any type of work undertaken by a child. This is work that requires many hours, for which they are too young, compromising their physical health and mental wellbeing, robbing them of their play time and depriving them of education. Forms of child labour could include working in dangerous conditions in a wide range of sectors that is both mentally and physically challenging for kids. For example, it could be working long days in agriculture, mining, construction or in factories. Being forced to work can have an effect on children's physical, cognitive (thinking/learning), behavioural and emotional development.

Some of the effects on children who were victims of child labor could be:

General child injuries and abuses like cuts, burns and fractures, tiredness, nighmares and excessive fears.
Sexual abuse, particularly sexual exploitation of girls by adults and its consequenses like; rape, early and unwanted pregnancy, abortion, Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STDs) and HIV/AIDS.
Physical abuse that involves punishment and emotional maltreatment.
Emotional neglect such as deprivation of family love and affection.
Physical neglect like malnutrition, lack of provision in clothing, shelter and medical treatment.
Problems in social development, not engaging in social play and peer-interaction can result in developing behavioral disorders.
Lack of schooling results in missing educational qualifications and higher skills.

All of the above can contribute to developing stress, low self-esteem depression, anxiety, and PTSD.

What do children need in order to heal?

Because children's bodies and minds are still fully developing, children are more vulnerable for these consequences when they are forced to engaged in child labor. Children have specific needs in order to develop healthy. Children need to build personal positive relationships in order to thrive and feel confident. They need a safe, calm, and reliable space in which they are provided with nutrition, education and safe peer-and adult relationships. In order to heal from the effects of child labor it is important that their teachers know how to support these kids.

PTSD.

How do we help our teachers to reach this?

The children that are attending our schools have been victims of child-labor and/or faced difficulties in their young lives. Changes are high that these children have been affected with the consequences of child labor in some sort of way.

The teachers in our schools, the real change-makers, are faced with challenges everyday since it requires a lot of them to work with a class full of children that have special needs in order to heal and safely develop.Therefore it’s important that our teachers feel empowered with the right knowledge, skills and tools to be able to teach in these challenging but rewarding circumstances. That’s why we provide them with a two week tailor-made training in which our teaching-teams learn all about cultural sensitive teaching techniques, how to teach in a trauma-supportive way, how to recognise and deal with certain behaviour and symptoms, and most of all how to be a champion teacher with whom kids feel safe so they are able to heal and develop in a healthy way.

How do we help our teachers to reach this?

The children that are attending our schools have been victims of child-labor and/or faced difficulties in their young lives. Changes are high that these children have been affected with the consequences of child labor in some sort of way.

The teachers in our schools, the real change-makers, are faced with challenges everyday since it requires a lot of them to work with a class full of children that have special needs in order to heal and safely develop.Therefore it’s important that our teachers feel empowered with the right knowledge, skills and tools to be able to teach in these challenging but rewarding circumstances. That’s why we provide them with a two week tailor-made training in which our teaching-teams learn all about cultural sensitive teaching techniques, how to teach in a trauma-supportive way, how to recognise and deal with certain behaviour and symptoms, and most of all how to be a champion teacher with whom kids feel safe so they are able to heal and develop in a healthy way.

All of this will be made possible in cooperation with Train to Change. All of our teachers in all of our locations will be trained by Julia.

Julia Wijnen is a childpsychologist, a primary school teacher, and a university teacher in the department of developmental pyschology. She is the founder of, and trainer for Train to Change. This NGO develops and provides trainings for local professionals in the field of education and mental health. In all trainings the local professionals, teachers in our case, will be provided with knowledge, hands-on tools and skills, and practice in order for them to continue to make a change in the lives of the children they work with. Train to Change has developed a program specifically for The next smile, in order to offer high qualitiy teaching in our schools in which the children can heal again. In two weeks time, our teachers will be fully trained in trauma-support, teaching techniques and to be that safe rolemodel for these children that have survived child-labor. The psycho-social needs for support of our teachers will also be taken care of.

We need your help to make this happen

To make all of this happen, to offer training to our teachers in order for them to continue to make a change in these children's lives, we need your help.

To be able to provide training in all of our locations to our teaching teams we need financial support.

Would you like to help these little survivors of child labour, by supporting their teachers to receive this training? Please donate on the button below, to help us make that change!