Resource 2: Asking questions about feelings
Background information / subject knowledge for teacher
You need to be sensitive when asking questions about feelings. Children might not always want to talk about their feelings in public. You need to ask the kinds of questions that allow children to give answers they feel comfortable with.
One way to do this is to ask questions to the whole class instead of to individuals. Ask questions such as: ‘Who likes …’ and ‘Who doesn’t like …’ with pupils putting up their hands. If they see that they are part of a group, the children will feel less embarrassed about revealing their feelings.
You can do the same by brainstorming different questions. For example, ask: ‘What makes you scared?’ and then write all the pupils’ ideas down on the board very quickly. This way, you won’t make the individuals feel too exposed.
If you want them to talk more intimately about their feelings, organise them into pairs and groups to do similar exercises. They will probably feel less intimidated in a small group.
You can also use stories to explore sensitive ideas by making up your own stories to share with your pupils. This allows them to talk more freely because they feel the situation discussed is removed from their own.
The stories of Ugandan street children below are ones you could read to your class to stimulate discussion. Either copy the sheet – one for each group – or read from your copy to the whole class.
After they have heard the stories, ask them how they feel about the children’s lives. Is they similar or different to their own lives? How would they feel about living like that? What would they like and dislike about this kind of life?
Uganda street children
Nabale Amuye, 10, comes from the Karamoja region where her family are cattle herders. They are poor and there are often fights between clans. With the insecurity, poor families like this need other means of income so their children are sent to Kampala to make some money by begging on the streets.
Nabale came to Kampala with her aunt three months ago to make some money but her aunt left her there alone.
She says, ‘I ate leftovers from the market like the potatoes that fell down and nobody noticed. And I lived in a house with eight other people.’
Now she has been taken to a centre with other street children, which is safer, but there are so many that there is not enough room in the dormitories and some have to sleep in the gymnasium. The plan is for the children to be sent home but they often return to Kampala and start begging again, so they don’t have the chance to go to school.
Adapted from: BBC News Summit displaces Uganda street children
It's Christmas in Gulu in northern Uganda, and about 20 street children have gathered in the local government's department of social welfare for the lure of free used clothing. The shirt or pants – both shirt and pants for a few lucky ones – will be the only gift they'll get this year.
Joseph Kilama, a social worker in the department, has met increasingly with this group of boys, trying to win their trust and get them off Gulu's streets. He first became aware of the magnitude of the problem when a few were arrested for stealing in the market and thrown into a jail for adults. Most of the boys are 12–14 years old.
‘Many of them lost their parents because of the war in this region,’ Kilama said. ‘Besides that, this war has brought a lot of poverty, so many of their relatives are not able to care for them.’
Each morning, Kilama or one of his colleagues checks the cells at the local jail. There is a building that has been designated for a juvenile centre, but not enough funds to renovate it, so boys are thrown into the adult prison. Kilama secures the boys' release, but with no juvenile centre or families to contact, he has little choice but to take them back to the streets.
‘I think it is the hardship which makes them commit crimes,’ Kilama said, noting that the boys usually steal food.
When asked if they want to return to school, all of the boys raise their hands and clamour that they would, but don't have money for school fees. Sam Thabo said that after the Christmas period, he plans to go back to his family and try again.
Many of the boys sleep in the night commuter shelters each night, too afraid of the cold to stay on the streets. But others prefer to sleep outdoors, so they can more easily gather the discarded bottles and tins that litter Gulu's roads. They can sell these for a few hundred shillings, enough to buy a meal. Mostly, though, the boys eat out of the garbage.
Edison has just found out on the streets that his mother has died.
Another boy says that his idea of a good Christmas is ‘when he eats good food, his body is clean, and he's also happy’.
Adapted from: Uganda: Street Children Falling Through Cracks in Response to War and Aids
Resource 1: Similarities and differences
