Buddy Day 2014: Every adult has a role in preventing child abuse

The 2014 Buddy Day will take place on 14 November in Auckland, Wellington, Hamilton and Tauranga.

Buddy Day, organised by Child Matters, involves school children decorating a lifesize cardboard "buddy" for adoption by influential business people, celebrities, politicians, iwi, community leaders, social advocates and members of the public. The Buddy is used to generate conversations about the role every adult has in keeping children safe from abuse in their workplaces and communities.

Buddy Day promotes the message that every adult in New Zealand can make a difference when it comes to keeping children safe. This year, participating adults will receive an informational brochure with tips for keeping kids safe on the sport field, in school, at social gatherings and other situations. Child Matters Chief Executive, Anthea Simcock said "The reality is that every adult can take a few proactive steps that can greatly minimise the likelihood of child abuse occurring. Buddy Day is about asking adults to step up and do whatever they can to help prevent child abuse in their circles of influence."

1500 Buddys are to be adopted this year, with many New Zealand businesses becoming involved. Sovereign insurance company, the principal supporter of Buddy Day, promoted the day with employees at a special meeting in Auckland. CEO Symon Brewis-Weston said "Raising awareness of these issues is very important for the future of New Zealand. We actively encourage staff to get involved in Buddy Day and understand the important role they can play in creating safer communities for children to thrive within."

Participation in Buddy Day is free. Find out more, register as a Buddy Carer on the Buddy Day website, or get the latest updates on Facebook.

Update: Buddy Day was presented at the 28th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva in March 2015. Watch the video presentation.

Media:

Buddy Day presented at UN Human Rights Council, Voxy, 13.03.2015

Sovereign support a major boost for Buddy Day, Scoop, 13.11.2014

Sparking the conversation on Child Abuse, Beehive, 14.11.2014

Auction raises awareness for child abuse prevention, Scoop, 12.11.2014

Funny guy Jeremy Corbett supports Buddy Day's message, Scoop, 22.10.2014

NZ businesses to make child abuse a priority conversation, Scoop, 17.10.2014

Image: Colours by Camdiluv ♥. Licence: Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-SA 2.0)