With financial support from the Ministry of Welfare, at least 378 “Visiting Dzimba” sessions are planned to be held both in person and online from January 2025 to December 2026, as well as at least 68 “Dzimba Visiting Schools” sessions in more remote regions of Latvia (in municipalities/towns).
The goal of Dzimba’s Safety Program is to educate preschool and early school-age children about safety in relationships and to provide education professionals and parents with the confidence, skills, and knowledge to teach and demonstrate safe relationships to children. The skills learned in Dzimba’s Safety Program become a safe foundation for strengthening a child’s self-esteem and competencies.
During the sessions, children reinforce through interactive methods:
-
What safety in relationships means,
-
How to protect and respect their own and others’ bodies,
-
How to distinguish good, bad, and secret touches,
-
What good and bad secrets are,
-
How the body signals unsafe situations and how to act in them,
-
How to say “No” and where to seek help.
With the help of Dzimba’s Safety Program, we aim to provide knowledge and skills about relationship safety to at least 4,300 preschool and early school-age children, as well as to educate no fewer than 150 parents and 420 professionals working daily with children (preschool and early school teachers, social educators, psychologists, etc.), thereby reducing the risk of victimization of these children and strengthening protective factors in their lives.
To ensure the sustainability of the skills learned and activities during the program, we plan to engage both professionals and parents directly in continuing to address the topic of personal safety in relationships with children. After both the “Visiting Dzimba” sessions and the “Dzimba Visiting Schools” events, professionals will receive a set of materials to help them continue addressing these topics with children in daily work. Professionals will also receive electronic materials to send to parents so that parents can continue conversations at home and practice what was learned during the sessions. These conversations will also be supported by notebooks and worksheets that children will receive after attending the sessions.
Both parents and professionals have the opportunity to subscribe to Centrs Dardedze’s regular newsletter, which consistently addresses issues of preventing violence against children, and to use resources available on the websites of Centrs Dardedze and Dzimba’s Safety Program at www.centrdardedze.lv and www.dzimba.lv.