President Tsai Ing-wen, “Adults respond to children’s needs now; children will take on the society’s needs in the future.”

Puffy Is Good at Changing Frequency | Kid’s Right Interactive Exhibition

Five children’s rights zones & diverse thematic forums

As the pandemic becomes less severe and the restrictions less strict, Child Welfare League Foundation (CWLF) prepared a 9-days Puffy Is Good at Changing Frequency | Kid’s Right Interactive Exhibition starting from August 20th (Saturday). We translated children’s rights which the public may not be familiar with but closely related to into “Five Rights Advocacy Planet” with various interactive activities to give families experiences of issues children are facing nowadays such as online safety, bullying, mental health, voice to be heard, etc. Children are Taiwan’s future and hope for the country’s long-term development. President Tsai Ing-wen, who has always been a big supporter for children’s rights and welfare, was invited to our opening press conference. President Tsai highlighted the importance of every child and mentioned that over the years government has been integrating family-centered resources in education, health and social welfare, reinforcing the social security net, continuing to enact and amend child related laws and policies, and optimizing the child medical care system. In this digital era, the government will strengthen online safety mechanism to protect children’s privacy and allow every Taiwan Yina (child) to grow up safely and healthily. During pandemic, the president also reminded the audience to be mindful of the mask restrictions and encouraged parents to take their children to see the exhibition at Songshan Cultural and Creative Park (SCCP). Through this fun and educational exhibition, parents can learn to better understand their children’s needs and create space for children to freely express their voices about their future where children can use their power to change the society, change the world.

In the past 2.5 years, the pandemic has drastically changed how children interact with each other and how they manage their interpersonal relationships. Face-to-face education shifted online while many physical activities were forced to be cancelled. Children had less opportunities to interact with their peers and teachers, which to some extent aggravated their sense of loneliness and alienation. To give children more chances to smile, we actively advocate Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), helping the public to understand that besides meeting children’s basic needs, there are many aspects about children we should care and safeguard together. In this post-pandemic era, we collaborated with dosomething studio to create a grand interactive exhibition in SCCP. Through fun design, we translated the complex phrasing of the Convention into easy to read messages to the public. During 8/20 ~ 8/28 exhibition, we also organized 5 weekend forums with our partners and celebrities and 4 sessions of street games for parents and children to have a fun summer!

Kid’s Rights Changing Frequency + 5 Planets. Receive Cosmic Signals from Children

What is CRC? When my online friends ask me to send them a photo of me. Should I give them? My classmates don’t like me. Is it a kind of bullying? When children refuse to talk to their parents, how can parents know what their children are thinking about? When it comes to parenting, parents always have millions of questions. In fact, with all the changes in different stages of life, children also have all kinds of questions about themselves and the world. CWLF’s mascot “Puffy” holds the great responsibility of helping children communicate with the world, taking people to explore the frequency of children’s rights, and answering children and their parents’ questions.

1.      Instagram Art Wall

We invited 15 famous Instagram content creators including ghost-door, bailee_story, Lulu, Rimochi, Mekamee, Dyin, Teng Yu, A ee mi, Kingjun, minghan, dayuyoyo, peanutpupu, RONG, Tonn and ikuikustudio, to create illustrations for the exhibition in a humorous, childlike and yet sensible approach, as a way to guide the public to know five of children’s rights.

2.      Imagination Space: Why do we play games?

This is the planet that safeguard Children’s Right to Play. It is also the planet of open playground filled with huge building blocks and yoga balls. The projection on the ground have sensors and would change with the movement, making it a multi-dimensional interactive playground combining physical equipment, light and shadow.

Play is crucial in children’s cognitive development, sensory integration, interpersonal interaction, emotion development and physical health. Children are natural explorers. A frameless free play environment can exemplify the true essence of play and stimulate creativity and imagination, which will unlock children’s infinite potentials.

3.      Privacy Mirror: Who did you share your selfies with?

Children’s Right to Privacy safeguards personal private information not just in the real world, but also in the online world where young people are used to presenting themselves with selfies. Sometimes they would even send nudes to attract attention. However, once they openly share their images online, they also reveal their personal information and jeopardize their privacy.

In this seemly glamorous mirror space, everyone is like communicating forthright in the digital world. However, in your hindsight, dark side of humanity like smear, blackmail, etc. may be hidden and peeping at you. How much should you share should be carefully considered by both children and adults.

4.      Bully Balloon: Do words carry weight?

Hanging in the air with texts on the surfaces, these balloons represent those unintentional but tremendously hurtful words people may say. When you walk into this area, you will have to lower your head and bend down. From this intentionally lowered position, audience can actually feel the weight of the words.

In this Right to Protection planet, we protect children not only from physical abuse and bullying, but also from verbal abuse. Be it at home or at campus, hurtful words are everywhere. The wounds cut by words are hard to see, and they would indirectly affect children in their future development. Read those negative words on the balloons closely. Are they common in your daily life as well?

5.      1420Hz Room: Did you hear it? It’s children’s voice!

This world should not be defined solely by adults. Children’s voice can also create an impact on the whole society. Through 1420Hz children’s voice platform, we provide an effective way for children to participate in the world. We collate various discussions scattering in families and schools and help transform them into practical and achievable advocacy. We encourage children to exercise their Right to Be Heard bravely, take the initiatives to change the environment around them, and create a better future with adults.

Coming to the planet of Children’s Right to Be Heard, people can use the iPads onsite or their personal mobile phones to scan the code and create their own avatar on the main screen. They can also use their avatar to leave a message to the world. On the day of the press conference, president Tsai also used the iPad to leave the message, “Respect children’s voice and create a better world with children.” We welcome children and adults to look for president Tsai’s avatar on the screen when them come to the exhibition.

6.      ICU (I See You)：How to find a way out from the wounds?

Children’s Right to Health planet pays attention to children’s physical health, as well as their mental health. When people get sick, some can recover shortly; some may be devastated by the side effects which may affect their living quality for the rest of their life. This is just like what trauma does to the mind.

This maze was made by huge drapes. Children’s faces of hurt, sorrow, pain or nonchalance are projected on the outside. These are the expressions children show when their minds experience trauma. In the center of the maze is an art piece where a knife was intertwined by flowers, symbolizing the hope of children bouncing back from trauma with trauma-informed care. Scars may be left after the wounds heal, but every child can have a chance to get a new life.

7.      Documentaries: Traces of Love Trilogy

“Social worker auntie, I really want to keep playing badminton. Do I really need to stop here? I don’t want it to end…”
“In average one kid would die of child maltreatment in every two weeks…”
“The whole world shook that day. Our first instinct was to look for our parents… and we eventually found them under rubble. They were both gone…”

Three videos respectively document children experiencing poverty, domestic violence, and death in the families. When children encounter hardship and adversities, we can provide them care and protection by action such as volunteering and donation, so that they can pull in to shore in the storm and regain their hopes and dreams in life.

 

CWLF x Gong Ho Partners x Celebrities Forums and Free Play on the Street

“Puffy is good at changing frequency | Kid’s Right Interactive Exhibition” took place across two weeks. On weekends, we organized special events and invited Gong Ho partners including Taiwan Youth Association for Democracy, ECPAT Taiwan, The Coca-Cola Company, Chenchou Children’s Home, Taiwan Parks And Playgrounds For Children By Children, as well as influencers including Zhong Ming-Xuan (鍾明軒), Teacher Shen (神老師), Kelly Shen (村子裡的凱莉哥), Psychologist Grace Su (蘇絢慧), Dr. Lee Chia-Yen (李佳燕) to thematic forums like Children’s Right to Be Heard, Right to Privacy, Right to Protection, Right to Health, and Right to Play. At the plaza in front of the administrative building of Songshan Cultural and Creative Park, we guided children to enjoy “playing on street” before the end of the summer vacation!

We also organized a Designer’s Night for people with design backgrounds. We invited the founder of dosomething studio Cowper Wang (王宗欣), director of Phalanx Creative & Design Mark Chang (張嘉倫), Section Chief of Industry & Innovation Section, Taiwan Design Research Institute Si-Ning Jian (簡思寧), founder of Kuroshio Culture Eva Chen (陳頤華), and design major students to talk about “when philanthropy meets design” and how to use creative design to do non-profit organization branding, services, and advocacy so as to close the gap between social work and the general public.

Over the past 30 years, we have paid attention to children’s rights and development, continuously explored children’s needs and started new social advocacy accordingly. No matter how old you are, we sincerely welcome you to see our exhibition at Songshan Cultural and Creative Park, attune your frequency at children’s level to understand their needs, and move forward to “create a better world with children” together.