The Children's House
As a real life environment,
the house will be fitted out to promote the children’s
education. More than providing the usual household furnishings, the
house will offer its young inhabitants a real place for work, meetings,
culture and discovery with for instance, a little library. We will work
together (NonzoBénin and its Beninese twin) to set this room
up. To go further we wish to give each child a notebook1
in which he can express himself (writing, drawing, etc) on his own
story and things he knows about his family…This notebook
will be protected from the other children by the person in charge. This
person will be available for help when the children ask for it. Access
to writing, playing, and drawing is one of the most important elements
in child development; and the adult has to promote this access. As with
play, writing will be taught in accordance with norms of the local
sociocultural context.
The
presence of adults (person in charge, teachers…) will allow
the
children to achieve a sense of security. Children brought up in the
streets develop hard ways of life through the milieu in which they have
grown. Therefore, we consider that listening attentively to what the
children say is a priority. We want to work for each child’s
dignity, education and autonomy
1 ”This
tool has to be worked, reviewed, abandoned or not following the
child’s house evolution” (Dominique TEXIER-MION,
secretary
of NonzoBénin and school psychologist).