Participants will:
- Explore the reasons why children become involved in armed conflicts
- Understand the plight of child soldiers
Participants will develop:
- Empathy with young people who became child soldiers
- Understanding of armed conflicts and their impact on young people
Before you start
Clear some space in your venue. Lay some wallpaper (or large flipchart paper) on the floor. Print out the myths about child soldiers and child soldier stories (Peace Education Handbook, page 36, see downloads). Lay out some pens, there should be enough for everyone in your group.
Materials
Old wallpaper or large flipchart paper, pens, copies of child soldier stories (Peace Education Handbook pg. 36, appendix 2, see downloads), and myths about child soldiers (appendix 1, see downloads).
What to do
- Lay out the wallpaper on the floor and ask for a volunteer to lie down on top of it so that you or another volunteer can draw around them to make an outline of a figure.
- Then tell the group that they are going to think about their childhood. Ask them to write or draw any associations they have with the words ‘child’ or ‘childhood’ inside the outline you have just drawn. They might be general ideas like ‘going to school’ or specific games, people, and places. If you have a larger group, you can split into smaller groups to do these steps and discuss what childhood means.
- Next, hand out the child soldier stories and give the group time to read through them. Alternatively, read the stories aloud as a group.
- Ask the group the reasons why and how young people become child soldiers. You can take note of all the points mentioned on a flipchart. Use the myth-busters and statistics (appendix 1) to aid the discussion. If you have a big group, you can also do this step in small groups and then share their ideas in plenary.
Debriefing
- How did you feel when you heard the stories?
- Are there any parts of Beni’s and Marie Agathe’s stories that surprised you?
- What effect does being a child soldier have on Beni and Marie Agathe?
- What sort of issues do they have to deal with?
- Did they seem happy about what they were doing?
- Did they have any alternatives? Why did Beni and Marie Agathe act the way they did?
- What are the differences between the lives of the child soldiers in a war-torn country and the lives of children living in a peaceful country? Are Beni and Marie Agathe able to have a childhood like the one we thought about at the beginning of the session?
- Are there any similarities between Beni’s and Marie Agathe’s lives and the ideas you came up with?
- How does the experience of being a child soldier affect people later in life?
- Look back at the list of reasons why and how young people become child soldiers. What could be done to prevent children being put in situations where they are likely to become child soldiers?