New animated video teaches pre-schoolers body safety skills

SINGAPORE – Four children, in the form of brightly coloured cartoon plants, sing and dance in unison. But unlike typical children’s songs, they show children what to do if someone gets too close for comfort, or if a touch makes them feel bad.

“If someone gets too close to me, I’ll step back and tell them no no no,” sings an angry cactus.

Titled The Garden Of Safety, the animated video by Pave – an integrated service for family violence and child protection – was launched by President Halimah Yacob on Thursday at My First Skool pre-school in Fernvale Link.

The two-minute music video for children aged four to nine years old teaches them body safety rules and protective behaviours, such as walking away and saying no when someone makes them feel uncomfortable, as well as telling a trusted adult about their encounter.

Madam Halimah said in a Facebook post on Thursday that Pave adopts a holistic approach for its programme – before, during and after the violence takes place.

“While organisations such as Pave can play their part in preventing domestic violence, we, as individuals, can keep a lookout for our family, friends and neighbours, and offer them a helping hand or advice,” she added.

The animated video is funded by the President’s Challenge.

Dr Sudha Nair, Pave’s executive director, said the video is part of upstream efforts to protect children against sexual abuse: “Over the years, we’ve been meeting adult survivors of child abuse, and we realise that the trauma of violence never goes away.”

The Ministry of Social and Family Development’s

Child Protective Service investigated 443 child sex abuse cases in 2021

– an 11-year high.

Dr Nair said the video also gives parents a way to speak with their children about what is often a sensitive subject.

“One of the things that we have to beat is this idea that we cannot talk about sex and sexuality. It has to be the fact that we own our bodies, we have a right to say no. And it’s about respect. It’s about giving consent,” she said.

“And if we go with that message with parents and with adults, I guess it lowers the embarrassment in talking about the issue.”

She said Pave is currently developing a curriculum to go with the video, which includes interactive elements such as a game children can play, and hopes to work with early childhood educators and schools on this.

The curriculum will include warning signs children can identify when someone gets too close to them, such as clammy hands and butterflies in their stomach.

This is useful even if children are witnesses to violence, such as a parent getting abused, she said.

“So the idea is that (with) anything that happens, you need to tell somebody and you need to get help. This message about keeping secrets is very, very strong in this group, so we need to break the secrets because secrets are really toxic.”

Pave commissioned animation studio Finding Pictures to create the video. Its director, Ms Lee Jiaying, 32, said her team worked with Pave on writing a catchy song with lyrics children can understand about protecting their bodies.

Ms Lee, who is 38 weeks pregnant, said: “It’s a bit personal for me as well. I was thinking how do I want to leave behind something that is for my child, how to teach him how to protect himself in the future.”

Pave is working with the Singapore University of Social Sciences to produce more body safety videos for children and adults in the coming months. 

The video can be found on Pave’s Facebook and Instagram pages.