Illuminating Futures: Enabling children

Hello friends of Prime Trust,

The evening schools are an important meeting point for the community. They primarily are used to conduct remedial classes for children after their regular school hours. The evening schools are also, however, used for many other purposes to help better that community. Prime Trust regularly conducts awareness programs around the Pondicherry area. Sometimes, if we have the space, these programs are held at the evening schools.

Recently, we had volunteers talk about Safety at one of the children’s groups. Talking openly about sexual assault is very important. Mostly, it is viewed as a taboo topic that results in victims of sexual assault living with trauma and not seeking help. Many people do not understand that sexual assault is very common; it happens/or has happened to 1 in 4 girls/women and 1 in 6 boys/men. Alarmingly, these incidents happen at a young age for these individuals. Majority of these crimes are committed by someone the victim usually knows and sees regularly, such as family members, teachers, neighbors etc. This is why Prime Trust has made it one of our goals to educate the public on this matter.

During these awareness classes, volunteers educated on this topic talk about differences between a “good touch” and a “bad touch”, the “P-A-N-T-S” rule, which empowers children and emphasizes ownership their bodies, and resources on where to seek help if something does or has happened to them. The more opportunities we have to educate the public, it is our hope that fewer of these incidents happen and more victims can seek help.

We hope that by building more evening school, we can conduct these classes to a larger group of students and adults. Additionally, these classes can be held in a cleaner and dryer space!