Save Our Children
Do you know, have or even are a child? Child abuse is a sad reality, a real and big issue which affects lots of children all over New Zealand. Can you imagine you or any child bruised and broken, thinking they are stupid and dumb? Why is this happening to the younger generation?
Raw Child Abuse
Child Abuse is sub categorised into 4 sections; Physical Abuse, Sexual Abuse, Neglect and Emotional Abuse. Physical Abuse consists of beating, biting, kicking, punching, burning and throwing. Sexual Abuse is: being forced into sexual activity (rape) or touched in a sexual way also photographing inappropriately. Neglect is failing to provide the necessities such as food and water or leaving a child unattended for long periods of time (days) it is also medical neglect (Failing to provide the medical help needed) and emotional neglect (Not telling the child that you love them.) . Emotional abuse consists of getting bad thoughts into the child's head and making them stay: e.g Telling the child that they are stupid, dumb, not good enough, irrelevant.
Who Can Help?
There are a lot of organisations in New Zealand that are working towards a happy place for kids to live. The main group is Child, Youth and Family (C.Y.F). Visit C.Y.F’s website: http://www.cyf.govt.nz. There is lots of other companies around to help such as Every Child Counts and Child Matters . All companies are working towards a child abuse free New Zealand although this may never happen the least we can do is lower the child abuse rating as we have the 5th highest child abuse rating in the world.
Help Us Stop Child Abuse
My group consists of Renee (Year 9), Brooklyn (Year 8), Rachel (Year 9) and Me (year 8). One of our first ideas we decided was to include ‘handouts’ in out display, we also agreed that we should spread awareness of how terrible child abuse is. For the handouts we would put how to get help if you suspect child abuse, the handouts would be hand shaped and painted red and blue. The next step was to decide how we would get the stats and information across, it needed to be an expression of creativity. Finally we decided to create a book, a big book. Another idea was to create a persuasive video, we decided to this as well. Our next question was; will our Video and Book rise awareness of Child Abuse? We finished the video and decided to do something else the other thing came in the form of a backdrop, the backdrop was a sad house with ‘help us’ written on the wall. Our last added idea was to tape our mouths shut and write on the tape ‘Stop Abusing Us’, ‘Abuse Can Be Silent’ or ‘Why Abuse’. Our intention was to spread awareness and persuade others to report Child Abuse. 
Final Thoughts
I believe that no child should be abused because, why should it hurt to be a child? Although we can’t help every child but the least we can do is report child abuse, don’t be the person who hears a cry in the middle of the night and turns out the light. Be the person who hears the cry and picks up the phone and calls: 0508 FAMILY (0508 326 459).
