PNG project rolling out safe spaces for kids
Children of the Andai tribe in Kaiam village in the remote East Sepik Province. (file image)
Photo:
AFP PHOTO/Torsten BLACKWOOD
A program supporting safe spaces for children has been rolled out in Papua New Guinea.
The
Child-Friendly Spaces Toolkit
supports setting up and managing safe community spaces, and has a focus on embedding protection into existing community structures, from churches and schools to ward offices and aid posts.
It was rolled out during a training workshop in Port Moresby, where 18 organisations gathered to learn how to establish and manage child-friendly spaces in their own communities.
HIV/AIDS charity Links of Hope national operations manager Seruma Numa said children in local communities face a lot of physical and emotional abuse.
"We see how stigma silences them. Many can't speak up about what's happening in their homes," she said.
"A child-friendly space gives them a voice, a space to talk, to feel safe, and to be heard."
The spaces also serve as entry points for access to legal, medical, and counselling services.
Unicef said up to 80 percent of children in Papua New Guinea experience physical or emotional violence and widespread neglect.
Numa said by working through trusted community spaces, help can be there when a child on the street is ready to reach out.
"Children are on the streets. We see it every day," she said.
"By working through trusted community spaces, we can be there when a child is finally ready to reach out. The support must be there, waiting."
CARE International's peace project Manager Benoni Masalo said child negligence is everywhere in PNG.
"Parents often do not realise the importance of emotional and educational support.
"A child-friendly space offers something simple but powerful: safety."
Masalo emphasised how trained facilitators use creative methods, like storytelling, drawing, and play, as bridges to healing.
"Children express their pain through play. When you create that environment, it helps them open up.
"And it also helps communities see that healing starts with connection. That's when referral systems and community support become essential."
Masalo said they've had policies and awareness campaigns "but very little that reaches the grassroots in a practical way".
"This toolkit changes that."
The
Child-Friendly Spaces Toolkit
has been developed with the National Office of Child and Family Services and UNICEF, in partnership with several other organisations.
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No one ever said, 'Hey kid, you look like the type who gets his kicks from men; how are you coping with the epidemic?' The Venezuelan government seemed more worried about the morality of the disease than its impact on public health. Society saw AIDS as fodder for gossip: who had it, how they got it, and whom they'd passed it on to. Moving to Reagan's America ADVERTISEMENT At 25, I moved north to the US. Surely, I reasoned, a change of scenery would contribute to my personal growth, and it did. If AIDS was ignored in Venezuela, in America, it was a movement. A crusade for effective treatment, better palliative and end-of-life care, and government acknowledgement of the crisis. This was a fight to restore humanity to the people infected with HIV and those developing AIDS-related terminal diseases. At that time, a cure seemed unreachable. Paranoia about the disease was rife. 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Those who thought they matched the specific requirements of some picky man could answer an ad in the weekly rag, hoping to connect and have a good time. Chance hung out in the porn section of the Lambda Rising bookstore; among the magazines featuring unattainable standards of beauty and endowment, men equally flipped through magazines and glanced at other fellas until they were on the same page and left together. It was there, at the back of Lambda Rising, where I hooked up for the first time in the US. ADVERTISEMENT The drought had ended, and I cautiously began to establish connections with other men in bars, on the street, in bookstores, and in parks, coming to terms with the fact that I might never experience the same intimacy I had at 16 with my older lover. Grief makes itself at home In the broader context, reality was confronting and indisputable. Going through the Blade's obituaries every week was heartbreaking and scary. Men were dying left and right, leaving behind an enduring community where grief had found a home. The cause of death was always listed as an AIDS-related illness. Once HIV destroyed the immune system, many opportunistic infections like tuberculosis and pneumonia, or cancers like Kaposi's sarcoma and non-Hodgkin lymphoma, developed and attacked the body until all vital functions shut down. These men were dying regardless of whether they were young and vibrant or old and wise, had an established career, were students or retirees, poor or rich, white, brown or black, swish or straight-acting, single or in a committed relationship, local or foreign, conservative or liberal, religious or atheist. The obit section of the Blade became their common grave. In San Francisco, demonstrators gather in hommage of the victims of AIDS, walking along a large patchwork quilt representing the dead, in 1987. (Source: Getty) ADVERTISEMENT How could I be thinking of having a full and satisfying sex life when more than 70% of the men losing the battle against AIDS belonged to my age group? It seemed wrong and inopportune, and whether because of guilt or laziness, I gave up. At 27, I decided to stay still and stop plotting a fulfilling adult life. On other fronts, people kept organising and fighting not only for AIDS but for lesbian, gay and bisexual rights long before our transgender brothers and sisters joined the cause. Celebrity allies, such as Liz Taylor, raised money and awareness and led the conversation that changed people's views. She was so instrumental in bringing AIDS to mainstream America that a clinic attending men with HIV in my neighbourhood was named in her honour, The Elizabeth Taylor Medical Centre. With strict rules to protect myself, I'd step out of my bubble occasionally to meet men, but as in previous years, my liaisons would be more transactional than meaningful. Many looked for emotional connection and support, but I wouldn't give them that. That's not the way I wanted to be gay. I believed a relationship could threaten the negative HIV status I'd managed to keep for years. Many couples were in open relationships, and the idea of them roaming around, catching the bug and passing it on to me was scary. I was healthy and intended to stay that way. Luis Portillo in his mid twenties, 1991. Still, at 30, I began a relationship with an American man a few years older than me, with more experience, who patiently helped me emerge from the cocoon where I'd sought refuge from the crisis. The beginning of hope When my partner and I walked into the Twins Peaks Tavern in San Francisco in 1996, we had been together for a year; and although the moment was sombre as we acknowledged the men we had lost to AIDS, this was the year that the number of cases in the US declined for the first time since 1981. This was also the year antiretroviral therapy was introduced, slowing down the onset of AIDS in men with HIV. ADVERTISEMENT During a routine physical, my doctor mentioned that AIDS wasn't deemed a death sentence anymore. Antiretroviral therapy was keeping more people alive, and many had been brought back from the brink of death. Liz Taylor presenting former First Lady Betty Ford with an award during the First Commitment To Life Benefit held by Aids Project Los Angeles (APLA), 1985. (Source: Getty) The new advances didn't stop the fight for more research and respect. Fundraising events were elaborate spectacles that showered organisations like the Whitman-Walker Clinic, the main care facility for people with AIDS in DC, with funds to run their operations. After an arduous six-month training with a fun, loving group of Washingtonians, my partner and I ran the Marine Corps Marathon for a few hours through the historic streets and neighbourhoods of DC and Arlington, cheered along the way by supporters who applauded and thanked us as we went by. Luis runs the Marine Corps Marathon to raise money for AIDS research. (Source: Supplied) More than raising money for a worthy cause, I did it for those who couldn't do it. For a friend back home who died after her boyfriend infected her; for a sweet co-worker who, on Christmas Day a few years back, had succumbed to the disease; for the frail neighbours I stopped seeing around my building, and for the men who came out on a sunny Sunday for a slow walk through the neighbourhood and were gone by autumn. I ran for them and for those I'd never met but who had been loved by friends. Whenever I felt like giving up , I'd look around and see the healthy runners carrying signs with the number of years they'd survived the virus. Five years! Ten years! Fifteen years! Humanity was being restored to my embattled tribe, our community was surviving, and we were going to be fine. ADVERTISEMENT One positive impact of the AIDS plague in the US was the visibility the gay community gained. We were telling our stories. American society learned that we we studied, went to work, paid our bills, saved for a home downpayment, and travelled. We were all part of the community, and we wanted to be included. By the end of the century, my partner and I owned a row house in the historic Capitol Hill neighbourhood and had a circle of friends who showered us with love and respect; we were part of the lives of these young families raising kids, who always made sure we were included. Remembering being part of that still fills my heart with love and gratitude. By the year 2000, an estimated 21.4 million people had died of AIDS worldwide, with more women having died from the disease than men. I didn't know it at the time, but in the following years, I'd travel through the Americas and the Caribbean, collecting stories of women, men and children coping with HIV/AIDS for a documentary. It was an eye-opening experience that touched me deeply and made me lose my fear of AIDS. I finally realised that we could all be victims. The disease didn't discriminate. A few days before moving to New Zealand in 2003, my partner and I went to New York and joined the Brazilians marching down Fifth Avenue during Pride Weekend. It was quite the contrast with my arrival 13 years before. Back then, I had stayed in a cocoon, paralysed by fear, and now I was part of a goddamn gay pride parade! Luis and his then partner in the Pride Parade, New York, 2003. (Source: Supplied) A few years after arriving in New Zealand, I found myself single again, but this time things were different. I was older, wiser and better equipped to face life. I had no fears. HIV/AIDS, the once deadly disease, had become a chronic condition, and although people were still getting infected, they were not dying. As I go into my sixties, I look back forty years to the summer Rock Hudson announced he had AIDS and feel sorry for the twenty-year-old version of me, who was so scared and alone. If I could see him again, first, I'd tell him that there's more to being an adult than driving, smoking, drinking and having sex with men. Still, I'd say to him to worry and always exercise caution, of course. Most importantly, I'd ensure he understood that everything he frets over would be sorted in time because, before the end of the 1980s, a group of fierce, determined, driven, tireless, committed, sassy, pushy gay men and their allies in the US, appalled that their government was letting them die, would start a campaign of epic proportions and move heaven and earth to bring awareness, demand respect, and fight for a cure to this inopportune plague. Luis Portillo leads the video content production team at TVNZ.
