Stories behind the change ┃ The teddy bear

A TEDDY BEAR ┃ Carried in his paws the fear of children whose vulnerability was taken advantage of in the ugliest of ways...

Almost every child had a teddy bear.Maybe you still remember yours. He was a little ruffled, maybe he was missing a button or his fur was a little worn out because he was held too much in your arms. He would sleep next to you, he would go with you to your grandparents, on vacation and if you went somewhere, it was too important to be left alone at home. Wasn't he? For an adult, teddy bears are just ordinary fluffy bears that color the lives of their children. For a child, it's a whole world. He is someone he can take in his arms when he is afraid. Someone who doesn't laugh at him, doesn't scold him and is always by his side when he's sad. The child squeezes him to his chest and he seems to know how to soothe him in a way that only teddy bears know how to do it. He is there when the child does not feel like talking to anyone and perhaps, he is the first to tell a story to him in the evening, before falling asleep.Children get to trust their teddy bears a lot, which is why those soft and silent souls get to know almost everything that a per-son's childhood is about. Sometimes, a teddy bear ends up in places where we would like no child to be. In an interview room. In a psychologist's office. In a support center. Next to a child who tries to say, per-haps for the first time what happened to him. In those mo-ments, the teddy bear is no longer a toy, but a support. Children don't always find the right words. Sometimes they are afraid. Other times they think no one will believe them. But they squeeze the teddy bear to their chest and find the strength to speak. Throughout the 25 years of assistance provided to child victims, "La Strada" has learned that child protection begins with a seemingly simple thing: creating a space where the child feels safe. A space in which he is not judged, is not rushed, is not exposed to factors that would retraumatize him and is not forced to bear alone the burden of what happened to him.

The teddy bear asks no questions. He doesn't promise to solve everything. But it reminds children that they are not alone. Over time, a much bigger change has been built around this simple gesture: child-friendly interview methods, specialized services, trained professionals, and systems that try to put the best interests of the child before any procedure.A society changes when it understands that before asking a child to talk, it must give him a reason to trust.And sometimes, that reason starts with a teddy bear.In its 25 years of activity, "La Strada" has contributed to the development of a safer child protection system, promoting prevention, multidisciplinary response and child-centered approaches in cases of abuse and exploitation.

• 1.124 children, victims of sexual abuse and exploitation, benefited from legal and psychological assistance during criminal proceedings.
• Hundreds of years of conviction for sexual predators, in cases of sexual abuse and exploitation in which the victims were legally assisted by the lawyer from “La Strada”.
• 500+ interviews under special conditions, conducted by “La Strada” psychologists-interviewers.
• 400+ psychological evaluation reports, prepared by “La Strada” specialists.