ERVIN POLJAK

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Prevention of child abuse and risk behavior through creation of child friendly environment

Goals: To offer support to children/project beneficiaries and their families in order to reduce and prevent the incidence of abuse within families, behaviour leading to conflict with law and to raise levels of tolerance for children with additional needs.

Introduction

The Croatian Non-Governmental Association Prijatelj (‘Friend’) was registered in May 1995 as a community development program offering a range of center based activities and home visits for people in need in Kozari Bok, one of the most deprived and under-served areas of Zagreb. The community includes various ethnic and national groups, a significant number of Romani families, Bosnian families who settled in the 1980's, official and unofficial refugees, and a small number of displaced people.

Over time, the programs have concentrated more on young people and children as those whose needs have been neglected and who have least impact on community life and organizing. Thus, several programs have been developed offering the Community center as a space where activities with and for young people and children are created.

In accordance with that, the mission of Association Prijatelj, defined in 1997, is implementing activities and socially useful actions in the local community and supporting and motivating young people and their parents for self-organizing and fulfillment of their needs.

Since 1995, Prijatelj has implemented the following major projects:

a) Social and Community Development Programme

Activities:

group work with different groups: children; mothers, older people, refugees, returnees and local people
creative activities for children and adults including: play group; sports activities; art workshops; dance and drama groups.
discussion groups on issues of concern to young people: sexuality; AIDS awareness; drugs and alcohol, combined with specific health education work.
informal education and skills development including: language courses; literacy courses; sewing clubs; music lessons; art courses; photography courses.
home visits to get to know families and their problems as a part of outreach work and a counselling support
self help initiatives such as: old peoples; mothers' groups.
community-building activities such as: encouraging young people to visit older people; cultural activities across different groups; teenagers involved in work with younger children.

b) Youth Involvement in Community Life

Activities:

Youth Council development
Community actions initiation and implementation
Community newsletter production
Organization of lectures, panel discussions and/or debates
Sharing the information to relevant authorities pertaining to matters of concern for the young members of KB/KP
Recruitment and training of a network of volunteers
Formation of self-help groups, “Personal Growth and Development Group”, “Mother’s Group”

c) Supporting Young people’s Civil Initiatives through Establishment of Community Centers in Pešćenica Municipality

Activities:

Contacting Coordinator of local communities in the municipality Pešćenica, local people in charge of usage of municipal halls, different political, formal and informal groups and City authorities in charge of usage of municipal halls
examining conditions in municipal hall premises
running activities in the community center, promoting the idea of establishing Youth Council and volunteers network among the community’s youth

d) Prevention of Asocial Behaviour of Children and Youth through Organisation of Free Time

Activities:

empowerment of different forms of creativity through organization of art, writing, dance, music activities
organizing sport activities
promotion of knowledge, skills and confidence through non-formal educational activities and peer self-help groups
organization of the youth club „Prijatelj“

Donors to date include: IRC Umbrella Grant, Open Society Institute, Women‘s Solidarity Fund- World Council of Churches; Croatian Government‘s Office for Cooperation with NGOs; Stichting Kinderpostzegels Nederland; Kinderen in de Knel, Academy for Educational Development; City of Zagreb -Department for Labour, Health and Social Care; City of Zagreb- Department for Culture, City Quarter Pešćenica-Å½itnjak

Most recently Prijatelj has started developing the following projects:

a) “Internet Club of Kozari bok/put Youth Council”

The project is offering, to young people from socially disadvantaged communities, the possibility to acquire knowledge and skills about computing technology in order to advance their educational levels and to develop their creativity.

Donors: Open Society Institute, Croatia, committed; Governmental Office for the Cooperation with NGO’s, pending (matching funding)

b)”Towards Partnership between Youth Council and Local Authorities (Pešćenica-Å½itnjak)”

The main goal of the project is to facilitate process of a relationship building between Youth Council and local authorities of the City Quarter Pešćenica-Å½itnjak. Structures and functioning of local management will be introduced to young people, they will meet local officials and will jointly develop plan of action in order to enhance the position of youth.

Donor: Open Society Institute, Croatia; project commencing, February 2003

c) Empowerment of Citizens for Active Involvement in their Social Environment

Includes activities such as: Info Center; Legal Advice, and Family Support. The main project objective is to reduce social exclusion of community members through support for most vulnerable, poor and excluded and to empower community members for sel-organising and self-help.

Potential donor: Academy for Educational Development (AED), pending

d) Children Have the Right to Their Rights

The creative and educational activities of this project are designed to introduce the Children to the Convention of the Rights of Child, to empower them to exercise their rights in everyday life and to liaise with other actors (such as NGO’s, schools) in shaping the environment responsive to the needs and rights of children.

Potential donor: Office for Cooperation with NGOs of the Government of Croatia, pending.

Project Context

Prijatelj, the organization and its projects are located in Kozari Bok, Kozari Put and Å½itnjak communities. The City Quarter Pešćenica- Å½itnjak local community authorities have approved the use of communal buildings in Kozari bok and in Å½itnjak for project activities as an in kind donation.

Approximately 13 000 people live in the communities of Kozari Bok, Kozari Put and Å½itnjak, impromptu settlements in an industrial zone on the edge of Zagreb where deprivations of health and housing are compounded by poverty and ethnic discrimination. Social and technical infrastructure of the area is far from being developed and sufficient to cover the basic needs of the population, for example, parts

of the settlement are not connected to a sewage system and do not have an access to drinking water.

The community has developed during late 1960’s and early 1970’s in and around the site of an old village. It was primarily inhabited by migrant workers from other parts of former Yugoslavia who, in order to accommodate their families, managed to build small houses that were growing with the family, albeit illegally, in most cases. However, they have all been, by now legalized or the legalization is underway with a scheme in which poorer citizens will be allowed to pay their fees in instalments over several years. There is also broad consensus among citizens and City Council that no more building will be allowed. The community has primary school “OŠ Vinko Å½ganec” which serves both Kozari bok and Kozari put inhabitants and therefore it faces difficulties in meeting demands from a large number of pupils. The classrooms are overcrowded and there is a little scope to develop creative additional activities with pupils.

According to the school pedagogue, there has been larger enrolment of Roma pupils in the last three years and their increased attendance. She explains this by the fact that there has been an increased support for Roma initiatives in the community and by the development of Roma pre-school program in Kozari put. School pedagogue has also points out that there are large numbers of children facing difficulties coping with the school program (which is quite demanding) due to the low levels of previous knowledge, lack of support from parents and inadequate conditions at home. In addition, according to her observations, significant number of children is being neglected or physically abused as a part of sometimes culturally accepted justification of physical punishment, or more often as a result of stress and other disadvantaged conditions families live in, such as post traumatic stress disorder as a result of war events, forced migration, poverty, unemployment and so on.

The efforts for meeting the needs of Kozari bok/put communities are being carried out by official agencies (Center for Social Care, school, City Quarter, kindergarten) and several NGOs (Children First, Union of Roma, Roma for Roma). However, there seems to be insufficient attention paid to regular communication between those actors and coordination of their activities. This is one of the main reasons for using the term chronically under-served when describing the communities. We believe that although the resources are scarce and there seems to be increasing competition for them (especially in terms of use of communal utilities such as Community hall), there is scope for improvement of relationships between actors and service providers and for joint efforts.

One of the possible strategies for better co-operation and increasing the levels of efficiency of the services and activities for the Kozari bok/put inhabitants is proposed in this project. The project is designed and will be implemented in partnership between an NGO and s state agency, that is the Center for Social Care Pešćenica. Centers for Social Care exist since 1970’s. They are governmental institutions staffed by a multidisciplinary team (social workers, psychologists and lawyers) and responsible for a wide range of legal advice, counselling and preventive services for vulnerable families and individuals. They are part of the Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare. Part of their work consist of guidance and supervision of children and youth who are in risk due to their behaviour, conflict with a law, neglect or abuse within family. They also have an income support role, assessing individuals and families for various social security benefits and maintenance allowances.

Prijatelj and the Center for Social Care (CSC) Pešćenica developed co-operation during an initiative Modification of Behaviour through Play, targeting primary school children identified by the school pedagogue as those in risk, most of whom were Prijatelj activities’ users, implemented by CSC’s associates in the premises of the Community Center. The initiative resulted in information sharing between CSC and Prijatelj regarding the development of children participating in the initiative and the difficulties they were facing. However, due to the lack of funding, and understaffing of CSC, the initiative was postponed. The contacts with CSC continued although on an irregular basis and most often with regard to a particular child or family.

The proposed project is based on positive aspects of previous experiences which will be broadened and strengthened through a role of a social worker to be engaged in the project and will be a joint appointment by Prijatelj and CSC. This model of work and partnership between an NGO and CSC can be considered as pilot example in terms of development of co-ordinated and targeted action in specific community with specific population avoiding duplication of efforts, regular, continuous and co-ordinated follow up of different services and their outcomes offered to particular children and their families on different levels of community based services offered by NGO’s and by official state agency and regular support, activity and achievement review through joint supervision meetings.

Project Justification

Kozari bok/put communities consist of relatively young families, many of whom have 3 or more children. There are numerous migrant families (forced migration due to the war events or ethnic tensions, economic migrations) from other parts of Croatia as well as from other post-Yugoslav countries. Most of these families are burdened by a stress because they left their homes and way of life, their social bonds have been broken and they are facing difficulties building new once in a new environment with different value system. In addition to that, the economic uncertainties pose additional strain on parents as well as on children.

The intertwining between economical situation and values and social interactions is apparent in attitudes and behaviour towards children. Most of the parenting style adopted and excercised within Kozari bok/put families is based on the concept of traditional, patriarchal values, with father in the role of provider, decision maker and executor of decisions. In this system, physical punishment is seen as natural method of upbringing. This is not to say that all parents of the same background behave as excessive violators or abusers, it is more of a matter of adopted attitude towards children and physical punishment. However, the experience of Prijatelj activity leaders is that a majority of project activity users, perhaps up to 70 % of them are being physically punished on an almost regular basis. On the other hand the record of CSC for the year 2002 show that there were only 18 in the City Quarter PešÄenica (area larger that Kozari bok/put, under the authority of CSC) cases of abuses reported to the police which in turn informed CSC to undertake an action.

In a discussion with CSC social worker and local primary school teacher it was pointed out that the number of abused children is much higher, however, it is extremely rarely reported. This is even more so in cases like Kozari bok/put which are relatively closed communities, where neighbours know each other and are afraid to intervene in each others family affairs, or actually support such a parenting methods. The reluctance of school teachers to report abuse is sometimes connected with a fear of parents, and sometimes is guided by “practical reasons”: even if the abuser is identified and reported to relevant authorities, this will hurt the child even more because there is a lack of legal provision to protect those who are abused (i.e. restraint orders take time to be brought, abuser stays in the family and abuses even more; even he gets excluded from the family, family is in danger of loosing a source of income; or if the child/family decides to leave home, there are is only one shelter in Zagreb to accommodate them, with a space for some 30 women and children).

Thus, it seem fair to say that the number of abuse within family is under-recorded, the records show only extreme long term violence; physical punishment is accepted as a usual way of upbringing; the topic is taboo because it touches the privacy of the family and although reluctant to speculate about incidence, all relevant authorities agree that it is far higher than data shows. There is also a significant group of young people in Kozari Bok who are involved in criminal activities, particularly theft.

The children manifesting behavioural difficulties, on a smaller scale, who will not be able to participate in the group work of the proposed project, will be included in other Prijatelj’s activities and will form a control group.

In order to develop possibilities for creative use of free time and to prevent different form of socially unacceptable behaviour, Prijatelj offers a range of activities (drama group, art workshops, playgroup, newsletter, tuition group, community social actions, performances, exhibitions, sporting activities and tournaments) in the premises of Community Center Kozari bok five days a week form 11- 17.

Project Beneficiaries

a) Direct project beneficiaries

Project beneficiaries will be children from three broad groups, identified by Prijatelj workers, CSC workers and local primary school pedagogue:

children with additional educational needs: children with low school achievement, and children with minor learning difficulties
children in risk due to neglect and abuse within family: children coping with psychological abuse and physical abuse
children under the supervision of the CSC and children in conflict with the law.

According to the Croatian law and juvenile justice to children less than 14 years of age, to minors of 14-16 years of age and to minors of 16-18 years of age can be applied so called educational measures. In addition, the last group (16-18) can serve prison terms for the undreamed in exceptional circumstances. For all other groups of minors different measures exists, however those implemented by CSC most routinely are the following:

a) educational – which are usually conducted by CSC. Practically, underage person in conflict with law is advised and counselled by social worker; family situation, school achievement and use of free time is being supervised. It is considered to be a short-term measure.

b) additional care and supervision – this is also carried by CSC by means of counselling and supervision of underaged person and family, however there is no need to exclude him/her from the social environment. It is considered to be longer-term measure.

Total number of children, participating in the project, will be 72. Other direct project beneficiaries will be their parents. Total number of direct beneficiaries is estimated to be about 144 (this estimate includes only one parent as direct beneficiary, although, in many cases, both parents could and will be participating in the activities).

b) Indirect project beneficiaries

Children, who according to selection criteria will not be included in the group work, but need additional attention due to the potential risk behaviour will form a “control group” and will be included in other Prijatelj’s activities, their parents will be visited, and their overall progress will be monitored, and at the end of the project compared with that of the project’s participants.

Indirect project beneficiaries will be children participating in other Prijatelj’s activities and members of Kozari bok/put communities. Indirect beneficiaries will learn about additional project outputs thorough campaigns, performances and exhibitions prepared by project participants in order to raise awareness of public about the issues of child abuse and juvenile justice. It is estimated that campaign messages will reach at least 50% of total Kozari bok/put population.

Goals:

1. To offer support to children/project beneficiaries and their families in order to reduce and prevent the incidence of abuse within families, behaviour leading to conflict with law and to raise levels of tolerance for children with additional needs

Additional goals:

To create safe space where children can talk, share and work on their experiences
To raise awareness of children about different forms of abuse
To raise awareness about rights of children to protection from abuse and about existing protection mechanisms
To develop peer sensitivity
To raise awareness about prejudices contributing to "justification" of abuse
To practice, with children, communication skills contributing to reducing of behaviour resulting in conflicts
to educate children about rights of children who are in conflict with law
to support development of attitudes about need to face the consequences of certain forms of behaviour
With parents- to develop skills for responsible parenting, advice, information

2. To support children to take on more active role in shaping their living environment free of different forms of abuse through organisation of campaigns and public performances sending messages developed by children themselves. In this way, the transition from a role of a “victim” of certain behaviour to the role of advocate against that behaviour will be facilitated, which should enable children to create a more positive image of themselves. This should also contribute to the creation of positive perception of children (especially those labelled by a community as “delinquent”) by other members of community.

3. To develop co-operative and co-ordinated long term effort of all relevant and concerned actors with a mandate to enhance the position of children in the families and within community.

Activities:

1. To identify children and families, project beneficiaries (in Cupertino with CSC and local primary school)

2. To initiate first contact with children and their families

3. To implement activity plan with children and their families. A plan will consist of a detailed description of workshops forming four thematic units:

a) What can I do/how to cope in a situation when adults do not care about my psychophysical well being?

b) What are prejudices and how can they affect my life?

c) What are laws and how do they affect me? What are my rights and duties? What to do and who to talk with when in conflict with a law?

d) What are socialisation, communication and interactions? Which skills are needed to be successful in school, when interacting with peers, parents, and teachers?

e) Regular meetings with parents – individual, group, counselling, advice.

Social worker and drama/dance activity leader, who will lead groups in pairs, will implement activities. In this way each of the themes and topics will be explored using art, drama and dance expressions techniques. Each group will meet once a week for 90 min, with 15 minutes break when sandwiches will be served in the premises of the Community Centre Kozari bok/put. Individual contacts with children will be held according to the need.

4. To organise drama/theatre group which will consist of children participating in this project as well as of a number of children participating in other activities. Drama group will produce original plays based on the topics of this project and will perform in the premises of the Community centre, school and elsewhere with an aim to raise awareness of different audiences (other children, parents, school teachers and general public) on the issues of abuse, children’s rights, prejudices and juvenile delinquency.

5. To initiate and maintain contacts with parents

Contacts with parents will be held according to the need, but once in a fortnight at least. Important component here will be home visits to families.

6. To organise five Round table discussions for parents

Round table discussions with parents will be reflecting thematic units children will be working on, and will be held bimonthly for parents.

7. To organise four trips to the theatre/cinema during year for all groups in order to raise self-respect and to improve group interactions and cohesion.

8. To organise a two day trip for children of all groups at the end of the project to round and sum up interactions, developments, relationships and achievements.

Project Activities and Time Table

1.Initial phase: April 1 – August 1, 2003

Initial phase will include following activities:

a) Recruitment of social worker to be engaged in the project. A job description for the post is developed jointly by Prijatelj and the Center for Social Care Pešćenica. The post will be advertised widely and all applicants will be interviewed by a three members team: Prijatelj’s program leader and drama group leader and CSC’s staff member. Selected candidate and key persons involved in the project implementation will, at this point, have two team building meetings.

b) Selection of participants.

Selection of participants will be carried out in consultation with CSC staff i.e. social worker engaged in the department for children and youth, local primary school pedagogue and Prijatelj workshop leaders. Based on their knowledge about situation of children they are in contact with, their behaviour, needs, difficulties and abilities a list of potential project participants will be composed. It can be expected that the list of children needing proposed activities might be longer than a number proposed by this project, thus selection criteria based on the project goals will be applied. The selection criteria will include children with manifesting forms of risk behaviour (in the conflict with law, low school achievement, conflicts in the interactions with peers, teachers, adults, school avoidance) and those who, as observed, might have their rights violated (children whose behaviour has changed significantly in the short period of time).

Considering relatively restrictive nature of the project (it can accommodate only certain number of children) and the expectation that there will be more children in need for such a project, children whose situation will be estimated as not acute will be included in other Prijatelj’s activities (such as art and drama workshops, tuition and son). They will also form a control group; their behaviour and achievements will be monitored against the same criteria as those of children participating in this project so that at the end of the project comparisons of the effectiveness of both approaches can be measured.

c) Contacting participants (children and parents)

Potential participants will be informed about project’s content and goals. At the first instance the information about the project will be given by school pedagogue and CSC social worker to those children and parents who do not participate in Prijatelj’s activities. Further information will be provided by the project’s social worker who will visit families and introduce them to the project, offer support and additional information. In addition to that, children and parents will be asked to give a written consent for participation in the project.

d) Formation of groups

Based on the list of children and parents who agreed to participate in the project, four groups of children will be formed according to the following guidelines: gender balance; ratio between hyperactive and withdrawn children (1/3-2/3); balance between low school achievers and average, above average school achievers; balance between children utilizing different sensory and expressive modes (visual, audio, verbal).

Out of those four groups, two will consist of children aged 7-10 (lower grades, primary school) who are abused within the family. Other two groups will consist of children aged 13-15 who are in conflict with the law.

2. Group Work, Work with Parents, Drama Group, Outings and Trip: September 1 2003- July 15 2004

a) Group Work

All groups will meet at the beginning of September when the school year starts. Couple of first meetings will be devoted to the group building, trust and respect building amongst participants and between participants and group leaders. Each group will meet once a week for a period of 120 min with 20-min break for a snack. The agenda for group meetings is developed according to the thematic units described above (examples are presented in Appendix). The agenda could be modified and adjusted to specific needs of children of each group. A total number of meetings of each group throughout school year will be ???

b) Work with Parents

Social worker will contact parents twice a month by telephone, visiting them at their home or inviting them to the Community Center. Support for the participation in the project will be offered, possible changes in the family discussed and if needed additional information about other agency services provided.

Round tables for parents complementing thematic units that children will be working on, will be held every two moths on the premises of the Community Center. Presenters for the round tables will be professionals of different backgrounds such as: psychologists from Trauma Center of Children’s Hospital in Zagreb; social workers, Juvenile justice judge, teachers, as well as minority representatives and child rights activists.

c) Drama Group

Drama group will be formed as an additional, but complementary part of the project. It will consist of about 20 children who will take part in this project and of children who participate in other Prijatelj’s project. The purpose of drama group, as already stated, will be to raise the awareness about difficulties that children encounter in their family and community amongst various audiences. In addition to that, involvement of other children around these issues could reduce the risk of labelling children, project participants by their peers.

Drama group will prepare two original plays according to their interest and will present them in the Community Center for the peers and parents, in local school and other organizations doing similar work.

d) Outings

Four outings to the theatre or cinema will be organized for each group during school year.

e) Trip

One two-day trip at the end of school year will be organized for the participants of all groups.

3. Information Exchange, Support and Supervision, August 1 2003 – August 1 2004

Project’s social worker will maintain regular weekly meetings with the Centre for Social Care staff exchanging information on the project progress, individual progress of children that are under CSC’s supervision and will jointly review developments and actions needed. In particular CSC workers will be engaged in the additional work with parents, referrals of children and parents to other agencies if needed, and liaising with other state agencies. Regular monthly meetings with local school pedagogue will also be held.

CSC social worker will offer support and supervision to project social worker, project leader and drama group leader on a monthly basis.

4. Monitoring: September 1, 2003- July 15, 2004

Monitoring of each project participant will be implemented on three different levels:

Family situation monitoring – individual family/social histories for every child as a starting point for analysis
Emotional engagement monitoring during group work will be recorded in each workshop by workshop leaders
School achievement monitoring and the quality of free time

Monitoring of activities with parents will address issues of parental co-operation, participation in the meetings, relationship with children.

Participant’s evaluation will be an integral part of the project. Each participant will, after workshop/meeting, be asked to give a verbal and written statement about their feelings, relation of leaders towards group and individuals and usefulness of the content.

Parents will be asked to provide the same feedback information as their children.

At the end of the project focus group meetings will be formed representing all project beneficiaries. Focus groups will analyse following issues: process, content, usefulness, interactions with activity leaders and effectiveness of the project.

5. Project Evaluation: July 1- September1 2004

Project evaluation will be carried out by a team of two external evaluators: one person will be an activist from child rights NGO, the other person will be from a Centre for Social Welfare. The two will work as a team, according to terms of reference drawn up in collaboration with the funding agency. They will spend 6 working days each examining the Monitoring information, talking to project workers, beneficiaries, and other stakeholders. They will produce an evaluation report of approximately 20 pages describing the major achievements and problems of the project and making recommendations for the future. They will also take part in a post-evaluation de-briefing sessions with key stakeholders.

Appendix: Workshop Examples

1. Introductory Workshop: “The voice of children”

For each group of participants

Aim: to support children to discover the possibilities for freedom of expression through play.

Warming-up activity: present movements of children in play, in school, during argument.

Leaders explain to children the goals of the groupwork, methods of work and jointly the set up ground rules: about language acceptable (swering, offending and so on), respect for each other, listening while others are talking and similar.

Workshop leaders introduce the Convention on Rights of Child in a language appropriate for the age groups and use everyday life examples to illustrate articles. The examples consists of positive and negative cases with regard to specific articles. Leader reads a shot story about injustice incurred to a child. A group is divided in three smaller groups with a task to prepare short drama presentation of a story. The group will be presenting the story from a child's pint of view, the second from a point of view of a person(s) who incurred the injustice and the third from a parents point of view. Each group presents the play and others comment. Jointly they analyse the situation seeking the solution to repair the injustice and to prevent it happening.

The group is then invited to develop their own Bill of Rights which can start with the words:

I as a child consider to have a right to………..

Closing activity: a game of musical cahirs.

2. Workshop: Dealing with Anger and Rage

Aim: Recognition of existence of anger and rage and exploration of ways to deal with it.

Children are invited to sit in a circle and to shout their own name in an angriest way.

Question: What makes me angry? Leader writes on a big piece of paper all answers.

They all comment.

Bad words exercise: each child writes on a piece of paper a list of bad words and aggressive thoughts they think of when angry.

Q: What causes this aggressive thoughts and bad words? How do we feel when someone is saying bad thing to us?

Sape and colour of my rage – everyone gets the worksheet with a picture of two human figures (boy and a girl) and has to find out where is the rage coming from, from which art of the body, they paint the colours of their rage. Drawings are shown to everyone in the group and jointly they talk about what do they do when angry or mad at someone. Each child gets modelling clay and shapes its anger.

Discussion: Do you often feel like this? Would you like to change something? How can you change things?

3. Workshop: Prejudice /Bias

Aim: to help children to become aware of not only how they look at other, but how they see themselves as well.

Worksop leaders start with quick statements such as “All persons with glasses –stand up.”… After each statement those who are sitting down applaude to those standing up. Purpose: to show differences.

Excercise: Similar-different

Children are given clay of different colour to make what they want to. Discussion: each child explains the creation and talks in which way their item is similar and in which way is it different from preceding child’s creation. Workshop leader points out that they are all made out of the same material, but each is different from all the others.

Excercise: Find those you belong to

The leader prepares coloured dots: red, blue. Green and one yellow. The leader will stick the dots to the children’s forheads while their eyes are closed; when they open their eyes everyone sees other colour's, but not their own. Children must not talk. They use reactions to find the group they belong to. It is not permitted to signal to someone what colour he/she has on his/her forhead, or to shw object of the same colour. What happens with the one with yellow dot.

Question: How did you feel? How did you fell when someone invited you into a group/or pushed you out? How did you think a person feels when he doesn’t belong/yellow? Why people gather in groups? Life needs to be secure and predictable, people like to be part of a group so that they can feel wanted and needed. What do you think what other reasons are there?

Excercise: Each child receives a blank sheet of paper. At the bottom he/she writes down a group of people he likes or dislikes, for example; teachers, Roma.. At an agreed signal everyone at the same moment passes his/her paper to the first person to his left in the circle and everybody writes down some general characteristics for this group of people. Before passing the paper once again to the person on the left, the paper is folded so that only the name of the group is showing and the characteristics are hidden. The papers are passed around until they return to “owner” and after all the participants have written down their prejudice. Then the paper is unfolded and everybody reads his list of stereotypes.

Question: Do we have somebody who belong to any one of those groups? How did you fell as the characteristics were read? Do all the members of that group have the same characteristics or someone knows different examples?

Three most commonly disliked groups from the excersise are identified and children are invited to present/act their characteristics as they were expressed and their behaviour to the representatives of those people. After that they will be asked to recall fo an situation/event in their neighbour/school when prejudices were cause of misunderstanding or argument and to presented as a short drama.