NEWSLETTER 4

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4th Quarter 2008
 
Page 5
House Meetings
When we first started the idea for the Children's Refuge, one of the fundamental principals was to try to provide the children under our care with strong personal development and educational foundations, in the hope that this would result in more opportunities for a happy and self sufficient life after leaving the Refuge.

To help strengthen personal development we recently started to hold House Meetings with the children. At these meetings we discuss anything that people may want to talk about and try to find the best solution for everyone. In many cases there has been a complaint and we need to make a house rule. In this way the children learn to take some responsibility for self government.
Some results of the House Meetings are given below:
¤ 
On holiday nights boys may watch TV until 1am and girls until 11pm. However all must wake up on time - 5am.
(May seem sexist, but this was at the children's own request and will full approval from the girls. They all believed that they could not be trusted late at night together)
¤ 
Children may not have boyfriend/girlfriend relationships with other children in the House.
If a couple is discovered they must stop the relationship and eat 5 strong chili peppers each.
¤  If anyone uses bad language they must eat 3 strong chili peppers.
¤ 
For eating and drinking, children must use their own plates and glasses that have their name written on them. Afterwards they are responsible for washing their own plates and glasses. If a child does not wash up his own dishes or uses another child's dishes they will be fined Rp1,000 (half a day's pocket money).
(Puput , as a victim of plate borrowers, brought a motion that the offending child should be locked in the bathroom for half an hour. However, this was overthrown since, in a house with only 2 bathrooms and 12 children, many of the girls saw this as a reward not a punishment.)
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Because Steve is getting fat and needs the exercise, he may take his bicycle back which he had previously donated to the House. The bicycle is not being used anyway because it has 2 flat tyres, broken gears and a missing pedal. After Steve has fixed it up and lost some weight, maybe he would like to donate it back to the House again.
 
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