BENGALURU : In a world where children are no longer safe anywhere, parents and educators can’t afford to brush over disturbing but much-needed topics of discussion like personal safety and child sexual abuse. While these conversations may be difficult to have, two women, who are mothers themselves, have come up with a book that may help make this job easier. Safe Over Sorry (SOS) has been penned by city-based Ishwarya Kumar Ahmed and Chennai-based Sudhalini Devadason, who are the co-founders of Upturn Learning, a community organisation that works on socially responsible topics in the realm of parenting and childhood.
Over the course of 66 pages, the interactive and illustrative workbook presents activities and age-appropriate safety lessons, to introduce children to the concept of personal safety. Some of the topics it covers are safe-unsafe feelings and how to deal with them, recognising and dealing with inappropriate touches, dealing with strangers and standing up to bullying. “We believe it is important to say it early, say it often, and say it clearly. The book is targeted at kids aged between four and seven years,” says Devadason.
The main characters of the book are Mia, a 6-year old girl, and Zac, her classmate and best friend, who talk about topics that they learn every day related to personal safety. While the book can be read in one sitting, Devadason and Ahmed recommend taking one topic at a time. Each chapter of the book has the following sections: An introduction for the parent/educator to help understand the objective of the topic, illustration-based content for the child to read and discuss with the parent or educator, activities that bring the learning to life, and a ‘Let’s Chat’ section at the end of every chapter that encourages a discussion to recap what the child has learned.
The book took a couple of years in the making, with the women conceptualising the idea way back in 2018. “We felt that children need to be prepared with ‘what if’ questions for scenarios. We interacted with schools, corporates, parents and children mainly as part of our initial research.
We used modalities like panel discussions, focus groups, interviews and surveys. Besides this, we also reached out to experts in the US who have been working on prevention of child sexual abuse for decades and did a deep dive analysis of the kind of content that works without threatening children in anyway about the world around them,” explains Ahmed, who adds that the book has a lot to do with their motherhood. “It was certainly an emotional process because our own children flash in front of our eyes in every chapter of the book.”
And the two women want to help as many children as possible. “For each copy of Safe Over Sorry sold, we promise to train one underprivileged child on personal safety awareness. We have collaborated with NGOs to help implement this. So it’s not only for people who have children this age. It is for corporates, donors, parenting groups, anyone who wants to be part of this movement in building awareness about personal safety among children,” says Devadason. The book is available on Amazon and Flipkart for Rs 499.