Q AND A WITH MRS IFEYINWA CHIME WOMAN OF THE MONTH OF AUGUST 2018

KEEPING CHILDREN SAFE

Mrs Ifeyinwa Chime (IC) holds an MBA degree from the prestigious University of South Wales. She is also a Young Ambassador for Peace award recipient of the Universal Peace Federation and the Youth Federation for World Peace.

She has close to 20 years’ working experience in various multinational companies in Nigeria and the United Kingdom, and has worked in strong effective teams and at all levels. As a child safety advocate, she wants the Nigerian society – parents, communities, schools and the government – to WAKE UP. She says time has come for us to actively fight the menace of child abuse and child neglect before it destroys our families and society at large. She is the founder of the non-profit voluntary outreach The Ifeyinwa Platform (TIP). The non-profit has as its main focus, the promotion of the safety of children in our environment.

In this interview with Pride Magazine Nigeria (PNG), Ifeyinwa tells us how her non-profit TIP promotes child safety, her interest in professionalism in workplaces, and her philosophy on life.

PNG: Thank you for granting us this interview. Can you tell our readers who Ifeyinwa Chime is, including your educational and family background?

IC: Thank you so much for having me here PNG. First, I am a loving wife and mother to 5 amazingly gifted children, and a Catholic Christian. My name is Ifeyinwa, which means nothing compares to a child. I have a Bachelor of Science degree in Political Science and a Master of Business Administration degree from the Glamorgan Business School, University of South Wales, United Kingdom. I love children and promote a culture of a safe and happy childhood for children in their early years.

PNG: Can you tell us a bit about the organisation you founded, The Ifeyinwa Platform (TIP)?

IC: The Ifeyinwa Platform (TIP) is a non-profit voluntary platform that began as a result of the current trends in our society where we see and read about issues that affect children’s safety, even babies as young as a day old.

TIP is an advocacy outreach which uses print, digital and social media to generate real-life early childhood (0–12 years) safety solutions on best practices to manage and address the age-long questions on how to keep our children safe in the world we live in. Some of the core objectives of this advocacy platform are to create awareness on how to keep children safe; to protect the young from all kinds of abuse; to create and promote outreaches of faith and family to enable children in their early years to discover God and gain practical knowledge towards addressing the major issues affecting child safety in every region. Most of the scenario-based solutions can be applicable in other parts of the world.

PNG: TIP’s main focus is child safety. What does the safety of children entail?

IC: Presently in our Nigerian society, we notice that children as young as a year old are exposed to a lot of ‘adult behaviour’ – both good and bad. Studies show that children from the age of 9 months are environmentally observant and easily take into their conscious and subconscious minds and bodies’ things in their environment as well as the behaviours of people they observe around them. Little boys and girls are growing up fast in today’s technologically advanced environment with the Internet readily available on phones and other electronic devices. It is sad that many children do not have the spiritual and emotional nurturing that they require at this young age because most parents are seeking to cater for their families materially and financially and may be away from the home on a regular basis, leaving the children in the ‘care’ of those who are largely not caring for these young children. The resultant effect of the spiritual and emotional neglect of young children by their parents and supposed caregivers is usually the abuse of these children in the form of sexual, psychological, physical, emotional, mental and verbal abuse. So to a large extent, the safety of children entails the emotional, spiritual and physical nurturing/protection of children from birth to adulthood.

PNG: Child safety as you have said is multifaceted. How does your organisation go about addressing the safety of children?

IC: Presently TIP is mainly an advocacy platform focused on creating early childhood safety awareness, and this is achieved via physical school visits, child safety presentations, social media posts, TIP blog publications, and television and radio features on child safety topics.

PNG: One can say that the problem facing children in our society is hydra-headed – child labour, child abuse through beatings and battering, sexual abuse, child trafficking, are some of the issues among others. The challenges are huge. How do you take on these issues without feeling overwhelmed by them given their magnitude?

IC: I work alongside a few agencies – some government and some private – that have their own mandate with regards to ensuring children are safe and that they receive the utmost care, protection and legal counsel where needed. I work with the mindset of creating real positive impact in the lives of children. I schedule visits and follow up with the agencies so we take on issues and challenges together, and with this I avoid being overwhelmed.

PNG: What is your opinion on our level of awareness and concern for the safety of children in Nigeria?

IC: On a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 being the lowest and 10 being the highest, I would say a level 4 being that I write on social media, and I see/watch the news as well as read the reactions from the public with regards to child safety abuse. We still have a long way to go with regards to our level of awareness and concern for the safety of children in Nigeria. A lot of people do not think the issues are threatening enough but I know they are, with cases of parents killing their own children, children being sexually and physically abused by those known to them, and even children committing suicide.

PNG: What can parents do to ensure that their children are safe?

IC: Parents need to be extra vigilant, talk to their children more, listen

to their children and actually have child safety lessons on a regular basis. There are instances where one or both parents are not mentally stable and thereby are not giving these children a safe environment to thrive. These parents should be reported to authorities like the police, Ministry of Women Affairs, and domestic violence agencies to prevent the children from being put in unsafe conditions/situations.

PNG: What steps can individuals in society take to make sure our children are safe?

IC: Individuals in our society can also be extra vigilant to make sure our children are safe. Most perpetrators of child safety abuses are not strangers in the community and are able to abuse children because individuals have refused to question certain behaviour. Responsible adults to ensure our children are safe should question behaviours such as the following:

• Allowing children move around with only a driver and no other adult in their family circle of safety
• Leaving children with adults they are not comfortable with
• Employing nannies/house helps without due background checks
• Kiosk owners/security guards in our society not properly checked and their profiles not submitted at police stations to ensure they are not child predators.

PNG: It is clear that the government isn’t doing enough to ensure the safety of our children, but if you had the opportunity to meet with the president of Nigeria, what steps would you advise him to take to improve child safety in the country?

IC: Good question PNG!!! There are laws on children’s rights in Nigeria, however many of our states do not implement these laws. Also the law does not punish a good number of perpetrators of child safety abuses either because the child is made to keep quiet or the parents of the child refuse to expose the child abuser.

I would advise Mr President to urgently set up a project to create child safety awareness in all local governments in Nigeria. This project will involve children, parents, educators and caregivers. They would receive the awareness, knowledge and education from this child safety project. Our children are our future. If this project is adopted and carefully executed, I am fully confident that in the near future, we will have much less cases of sexual violence, suicides, cultism, addictions to food, drugs and other substances, crimes and other offences in Nigeria.

PNG: What advice can you give to government officials – in the local and state governments – to make sure that children live and grow up in a safe environment?

IC: At the local and state government levels, we need more government officials as positive role models for our children, who will walk the talk and actually give good examples for these children to emulate. If children at local and state levels live in fair environments where government officials actually provide security, good roads, working amenities and all other services, then children will grow up learning to appreciate the government, embrace safety as a culture, accept justice and have faith in humanity.

PNG: Apart from child safety, you are also passionate about professionalism in our workplaces. What is your involvement in professionalism in our workplaces?

IC: Presently, I am convinced that a large number of our Nigerian public and private organisations lack professionalism in the workplace. There are constant issues with employers and employees, which show an obvious disconnect. Most industrial strike actions by the different professional bodies are a result of a failure on professionalism tenets by the members/employees or the employer.

I am involved in organising training programs on professionalism in the workplace because I am confident that when our Nigerian workplaces are professional, then we can embrace sustainability and profitability.

PNG: We are intrigued by the third thing you are passionate about – positive living. What is positive living and how can one adopt this as a lifestyle?

IC: I believe we only live life once and each day is uncertain. However we can choose how to react daily to situations around us. I choose to accept the best in every situation and have a good purpose to living life, wishing everyone well and doing unto others what I want done to me. One can adopt this as a lifestyle by simply being positive, one day at a time.

PNG: Nigeria is a tough society to maintain a high level of positive energy. Do you believe one can truly maintain a positive outlook in an environment that fosters frustration?

IC: Yes PNG, you are right in stating that Nigeria is a tough society. I do believe that it is very possible to truly maintain a positive outlook as negativity; stress and worry only create more problems and frustration. Adopting a positive outlook fosters creativity, solutions and a healthy lifestyle.

PNG: You have studied, lived and worked abroad, what informed your decision to move back to Nigeria and how has it been since your return compared to when you were abroad?

IC: At the time I studied, lived and worked abroad, my immediate family was in Nigeria and I was mostly homesick, so it was an easy decision to move back to Nigeria. It was challenging returning to the largely uncertain terrain of interrupted power supply, workplace bullying and other issues. However I am so glad that I returned and I have birthed so many possibilities and recorded positive successes.

PNG: It’s been a pleasure talking with you. To end, what slogan would you suggest that children bear in mind so that they are conscious that they stay safe at all times?

IC: I would suggest; ‘Be Prepared, Safety First’ as this keeps children on guard and highlights safety as being their foremost concern in all things. Thank you once again for having me PNG.