Surinamese youngsters speak out against mobile pornography

by Zarissa Windzak.

Bluetoothing around pornography with your mobile phone. It seems to be the rising of a new trend in Suriname. Every day there would be a new video on the scene. Exept that youngsters seemed to enjoy sending around these video images, the bigger problem was that they were actually the ones making it.

“I was shocked when I saw one of these videos for the first time. It was a young girl, about 14 years of age, and three other boys. I immediately called my chief about this”, says Marijke Etnel. As one of the employees of the largest Telecommunication provider in Suriname (TELESUR) she asked to start a project in which she wanted to include youngsters. Within the project she hoped to convince youngsters about the damage, the pain and the embarrasment of spreading and especially making certain videos could cause. “Say no to porn on my mobile phone” the project was called. In no time Marijke and a group of volunteers started visiting schools in Suriname. They held discussion groups and soon it became clear what the problem was. “Kids and mostly girls agree to make certain videos with their phones out of love. If the boy asks a girl, she does it out of love and he makes sure his face isn’t seen in the video”, Marijke explains.

It didn’t take long before all different kind of organizations began speaking about this new trend in Suriname. Even the officials from the police force had something to say about it. “Any spreading or owning images of youngsters participating in sexual activities is classified under child pornography and anyone walking around with these images can count on some jail time”, Dennis Kolf from the Surinamese police force says.

Now it seems like a turn of events, because it’s youngsters who are now speaking against this kind of mobile porn. Marijke’s project seemed to have worked and through different youth organizations youngsters are trying to convince each other to stop sending or even making certain videos. Through music, discussion groups and even plays they are speaking against mobile porn.

Recently students from the Trinidian Diego Martin Central Secondary school visited Suriname. They were invited by the Telecommunication company of Suriname (Telesur) to participate in yet another discussion group about this issue. It didn’t take long for the Surinamese younsters to realise that many Trinis also experience the same problem. “Kids do it because they feel like their gaining a sense of popularity. And you can see them walking around on the school yard with pride”, one of the Trinidian teachers said. Students from Suriname and Trinidad eventually started discussing the problem, but also thinking about the solutions. “In the end I don’t only want them to say no to the mobile porn, but also to explain why they’ re saying no. So others could understand why it’s a problem”, Marijke explains.

Our language is our cultural heritage

By Zarissa Windzak

 

 

Surinamese writer Novilia Tawjoeram recently debuted with her book “Conversating in Caraïb”. She calls the publishing of her book a serious attempt to helping Indigenous youngsters to remember their cultural heritage. According to Novilia the youngsters leave their home village at a certain age and travel to the country’s capitol for further education. In leaving the village they often forget the language of their people.

 

“I decided to write this book after noticing how many of my brothers and sisters seem to have forgotten their native language. Also the thinning of the number of tribe languages urged me to start writing”, says Novilia. Even though Novilia belongs to a different tribe, called the Arrowak, she decided to contact a Caraib woman to learn more about the language. “I myself don’t understand the language whatsoever. Not even my own tribe’s language. But that’s because I am like all the youngster who had to move to the city”. In Suriname youngsters, who live in villages located in the interior, have leave their village at a certain age for further education in the city, because there are no secondary schools in the interior of the country.

 

“The youngster are often likely to forget their roots because of all the western influences in the city. After some time they start forgetting certain words. In the villages the language is still spoken, but you’ll probably only hear the elders speaking it. They’re the ones who have lived in the village their entire life”, Novilia continues. In order to write the book she started interviewing and hearing out her Caraïb friend Bernadett about the language. It took her about two years to finally finish the book. Now it’s being sold in all the bookstores in the city.

 

The book “Conversating in Caraïb” is written in three different languages. Dutch, because that’s the language spoken in Suriname. English, because Novilia hopes foreigners would show interest in her book and of course Caraib for her people to start learning. Novilia also included an audio disc for readers to work on their pronunciation of the words. “Soon I want to start with my second book. And that’ll certainly be about conversating in Arrowak”, Novilia says.

 

 

Surinamese President Gets Kids’ Advice About Child Abuse

Read what they had to say

By Zarissa Windzak

  

 

Paramaribo, Suriname November 2008 - The International Day Against Violence Against Children isn’t something you talk about once a year. One day just isn’t enough. Everyday, we all should work on ways to protect children,” Lillian Ferrier says. She is the chairperson of the Foundation for Human Development in Suriname, and not only a child psychologist, but also hardcore soldier when it comes to fighting for child’s rights. She recently held a 7-day campaign, called “Be Nice to Kids.” The main idea of the campaign was the participation of children–Even when it comes to the decision-making. Together with the help of Lillian and the Foundation for Human Development, more than 400 school children wrote letters to the president of Suriname, Ronald Venetiaan, all advising him in their own words how to protect them against violence.

 

These are just a few letters out of the hundreds. The children who wrote these letters are from schools such as the Renckewitzschool, Christiaan Davidsschool, the Saint Ignatiusschool, Gijsbertus school and Flu I school.

    

 

To: President Ronald Venetiaan

 

My name is Darrel and I’m in the fourth grade. Children should not have to be beat up. I don’t want my mother to beat up my little sister anymore. If my sister doesn’t want to go to bed my mother hits her and then my mother leaves and stays away for a whole week. I have to make food for my sister and sometimes I don’t have time to do my homework. Sometimes my cousin does my homework for me.    

 

 

Dear Sir,

 

I think it’s bad that kids get abused. That’s why I’m writing you this letter:

 

Dear Mr. President, I think it’s really terrible that kids get abused by their fathers, mothers, relatives, teachers, baby-sitters, or friends. Sir, if you want to prevent mental abuse, you can do this: 1. make sure kids don’t get tied when they go to sleep, 2. make sure kids don’t get laughed at and 3. That kids don’t get frightened so they can’t sleep. If you want to prevent physical abuse, prevent parents from giving children scars or skin burns. If you want to prevent sexual abuse, make sure that men and women from touching children on their private areas. If some people do it anyway you should send them to jail. You can choose how long they have to stay there.

 

From: Kevin

For: the Nice President Ronald Venetiaan

 

To:  the President of the Republic of Suriname

 

Dear Sir,

 

I wonder why children get abused at home or school. They get hit by their parents and by their teachers. I wonder why children get beat up with wires or scoop spoons, and get scars and bruises on their bodies. I ask you mister President of the Republic of Suriname to not let kids get treated this way. Not even if they get low marks on tests.

                                                                                                                   Alan

 

My name is Anthony

I am 10- years old

I go to the Christiaan Davidsschool

 

My message is that the president should talk about child abuse on our independence day so parents won’t hit their children

 

 

My name is Keith

I am 8- years old

 

President, if you don’t want children in Suriname to get abused you have to put the pictures and names of people who abuse kids in the newspapers for everyone to see who they are. They shouldn’t be let out of jail too.

 

 

More People Aware of Environmental Issues

(Zarissa Windzak, Suriname)

 

So there’s a baby in the house. In some cases this would be a joyous occasion. However, it is not so fun if the neighbors can’t smile about it. Let’s not think they’re baby-haters; it’s the environmental problem that bothers them.

 

“Sometimes there’s baby poo all over the front lawn, because the dogs keep ripping up the garbage bags,” says Jo- Anne. She says she can always tell when there’s a new baby in the neighborhood without even seeing the baby. “The people don’t really know how to dispose of their pampers I guess.’’ The final report of the Suriname Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS) and Millennium Development Goals (MDG) indicators in 2006, called “Monitoring the situation of children and women,” was recently put in the spotlight by various presses. And though the majority praised the 91 percentage use of improved drinking water sources in Suriname, some did wonder about the 33 % that referred to disposal of child’s faeces. Considering the percentage it seems that there are a lot of people who don’t really know what the right method of disposal is.

 

Hopefully they’re on the way to finding out. Especially now the theme of UN Day is “Environmental sustainability” this year. At least Marlenè Harris found a way to bring the information somewhat closer to the households. She is the director of NIMOS, a local institute for environment and development in Suriname. Together with colleague Gina Griffith and of course a couple of others she put up a website about the institute and most important the issues to sustaining a clean and healthy environment. Even though the website has been up for about five years, a whole group of schoolchildren went to the institute itself to check out the website. That’s because the site has been pumped up.  “The graphics of the website were pretty boring considering the new developments of the internet,” Gina says. Instead of just the information the institute loaded up more pictures and added latest news of environmental developments. And believe it or not they even set up an inbox to send in complaints.  “You can’t believe how many people call in to complain about things going wrong. From garbage on the streets to little garbage fires on the lawn,”  Marlenè comments.  She thinks through the years much more people are aware of the environment, because she notices the actually can explain why they think something is wrong”. But that doesn’t mean it’s the end of all the work the institute has accomplished.  “We want everyone to be aware of the different issues concerning the environment. Not only the adults, but also the kids. For example we would want them to know not to keep printing paper because there are a lot of ways this could be damaging to the environment”.

155th Anniversary Chinese immigration in Suriname

“I’m young, Chinese and have an own identity”

“Chinese people are dirty”, says Marian (15)

“All things made by Chinese are fake and easily break”, Jessica (14) continues. You’d think these remarks are spoken by a couple of racist young girls. On the contrary, these are the remarks they often have to deal with at school.

Suriname celebrated the 155th anniversary of the Chinese immigration on the 20th of October. The country’s president Ronald Venetiaan pleaded, just as he did during the celebration of the Chinese new-year, for the community to accept the Chinese people as equal citizens in the country.

The Chinese community has often been spoken very negatively of by other groups within the country. The remarks made by Jessica and Marian are the most used. “I don’t like to discriminate or anything, but in school it’s mostly the black kids that bother us about our heritage. They would say things like Chinese people are dirty and they don’t like to bathe,” Jessica explains. She goes to a girls school and admits she sometimes can’t help to react by saying mean things back. “I would react by saying that everyone in Suriname should be happy that we are even in the country, because it’s the clothes made by us Chinese that these people wear on their backs,” she says.

Just like Jessica, Marian also feels discriminated against at times. “Most people think that all Chinese own a store or can’t speak dutch, which is not true. It’s possible that the Chinese who just migrated to Suriname are all the things most people think, but they keep forgetting that the rest are born in Suriname.” In any case Marian is still proud of her heritage, especially the fact that many Chinese people in Suriname own a store.

Marian and Jessica are best friends. Marian’s surname is Lieuw, while Jessica’s is Lie. They’re not related or anything. Jessica: “It’s spelled very differently but when you pronounce it, it sounds the same. The names are written in various ways, some are also spelled L-I or L-I-E or L- E- E. All of them are also pronounced in the same way.”

With the celebration of the 155th anniversary the girls also participated in some of the festivities. “We go to the same church and we just sang on stage in the church choir.” Marian says. With their friends from the church they sang a couple of Chinese songs as an exhibition of their heritage. After the celebration the girls hope that the teasing in school will stop so they can be treated as equal people, but with their own identity. “I don’t want it to bother me, because I know the important thing is to know how to live right and how to treat others,” Jessica concludes.

 

 

(Zarissa Windzak, Suriname)

 

 

 

Wash your hands. Everybody’s doing it !

They’re on the doorknobs, your toys, the bed sheets and even on your hands. Germs. Manisha and Martin are planning a complete elimination of these small terrorists. How? By simply washing their hands with soap.

-by Zarissa Windzak

Suriname, 15 October, 2008 -“When I was much smaller my mother used tell me to wash my hands all the time. Now she doesn’t have to,” Manisha (11) says. As she strolls to the centre of the elementary school, she explains what’s about to happen. “We’re going to teach our friends how to wash their hands the right way so they won’t ever get sick due to germs.” Manisha is accompanied by Martin (10) and about thirty other schoolchildren. In the middle of the schoolyard there’s a table. On that table there are two buckets: A red one and black one. Even though all eyes are pointed to these buckets, everyone knows no treats will be jumping out of them. “You’re supposed to make sure both hands are wet, squirt a bit of soap on one hand and rub your hands together. It’s important that your fingertips are clean too, because the germs like to hide under your nails,” school nurse Aretha explains.

As the “Global Handwashing day” starts in Suriname the kids at the Latour elementary school put up their drawings. Each of the drawings contains characters washing their hands. During the past week they’ve all worked on showing what they know about the importance of washing their hands. Next to the different colorful drawings posters are also put up, which show the steps to clean germ-free hands.

“In the whole world millions of kids are dying of diarrhea. Our bodies carry a lot of germs. Some are harmless, but others can be really dangerous. You can’t tell how bad they are because you can’t see the germs. The germs are transmitted to others through your hands. So if you don’t wash your hands, others get infected with your germs. Like you they also can get sick,” the school nurse continues telling the children.

Martin knows just what she’s talking about. Martin (10): “My big brother never used to wash his hands. Even though my mother warned him a couple of times, he’d never listen. If he went to the bathroom he never even wash his hands. When he got diarrhea he finally started putting his hands under the faucet. I guess he realized I was right.”

The golden rule of this day is specifically to use soap when washing hands. In the school’s bathroom Manisha uses the hand sanitizer as soap. Afterwards she dries her hands off with towels. This is much different than what she does at home. “I wash my hands with Ozon powder soap. I don’t mind because it smells really nice.” She admits she never thought that drying off her hands with paper towels would be better than using cloths; but after school nurse Aretha showed how germs can stick to the wet cloths, she’s thinking about telling her mother to use towels instead of just cloths to dry off their hands.
“It’s just important to wash your hands before and after eating, going to bathroom or playing. Just because of all the germs on your hands. If you don’t clean your hands, you’ll get sick and probably won’t be able to play anyway,” Martin says. After the little demonstration from the nurse how to wash their hands he and his friend Dinesh take their places behind the two buckets, with Martin behind the black one and Dinesh behind the red one. If the school nurse can do it perfectly, so can they.

The other kids must have thought the same thing because not long after the demonstration the school’s bathroom is to crowded to even go in. Everybody feels like washing their hands.

(Zarissa Windzak, Suriname)