PaSchu 

Austria

Introduction

Pashu is a pre- and intervention project for children of kindergarten and elementary education age. Together with pupils, a wide variety of materials were developed on the topic of children’s rights. The topics of protection against domestic violence, bullying and exclusion, as well as separation, divorce and poverty were taken up particularly intensively. 

Presentation of the project

Location: Austria/ Salzburg Pongau 

Need for action: Especially during the pandemic, it became clear how important it is to increase the resilience of children and young people and to facilitate their access to support when they are affected by problems (e.g. domestic violence) and to start this prevention work at an early age. Although anchored in the early childhood curricula, there have been no working materials on the subject of children’s rights. 

 Objektives:   

Various materials were lovingly developed together with peers, including a children’s book, which was subsequently published in 9 languages, a hand puppet, a puzzle, a memory game, a wooden board game, a song and an accompanying book with technical instructions for everyday kindergarten life. 

For each regional kindergarten, a paintable box was filled with the materials. The boxes were distributed to the kindergartens and the educators were informed, trained on the topic of children’s rights and problem situations in childhood, and supervision for particularly difficult topics was offered. 

In addition, trained staff were available to offer impulse workshops on the topic and workshops on specific topics (e.g. exclusion in kindergarten, domestic violence) 

Output 

Improvement of knowledge and as a result of the assistance/protection provided by educators in difficult life situations, making children’s rights visible and their implementation in everyday life 

Leader 

supports us in the background with the financial management of the project and is available as a networking partner and multiplier of the project idea and children’s rights 

Emblematic character of the project

• The children’s rights have been ratified by Austria, but the idea that children have been provided with specially named rights is often viewed very skeptically, especially in rural areas- the same applies to attitudes towards the use of violence as a means of education. From partisan work with children and young people, we know that many crisis situations can be traced back to traumas experienced at an early age. That’s why it was important to educate, to start a conversation and to build more problem-solving skills. Both the pandemic with its isolation periods, as well as a rising political inclination towards the new line of hardship in education, put a particular strain on children. 
• Easily, all the materials are designed by us and could be used to be  implemented in the work with children in kindergarden and beginning of elementary school  

MutMachen Pongau-lungau 

LAG Lebens.Wert Pongau-Tennengau

Austria- Pongau