CPFSA unveils child protection mascot, Mr Protector

The Child Protection and Family Services Agency (CPFSA) used Read Across Jamaica Day to unveil its child protection mascot, a bunny rabbit named Mr Protector, at Bamboo Primary School in St Ann on Tuesday.

Quite fittingly, the mascot was designed by 11-year-old Richard Small, a grade six student at Bamboo, who emerged winner of a mascot design competition the CPFSA held in 2019.

The pandemic forced the delay in unveiling Mr Protector until now but based on the enthusiastic response of students at Bamboo Primary, and other schools that were part of the CPFSA tour, Bamboo Basic, Free Hill Primary, and especially Priory Primary, it was well worth the wait.

Mr Protector’s launch was tied in with the promotion of CPFSA’s 211 telephone number that children can call to report child abuse. The number is a free 24-hour operated reporting line that was launched last year and is being used by children across Jamaica.

Warren Thompson, director of Children and Family Programme for the CPFSA, said the agency used the tour to engage with students around the Child Month theme, Listen Up, Children’s Voices Matter; and also having them think about where they can raise their voices, or speak out whenever they themselves experience abuse.

“We’re using the opportunity to talk to them about child protection, child abuse issues, and how they can speak out by calling 211,” Thompson said.

He explained that children have indeed been calling 211.

“Children have been calling 211, children have even been making prank calls,” he revealed. “We deal with the prank calls but at least we understand that they can call, they’re remembering the number, they’re reaching out. I know that, if nobody else, children are getting the message.”

PLAYING THE PART

And Mr Protector is already playing its part in getting the message across.

At Priory Primary, enthused students rushed on stage just to touch Mr Protector as he danced, forcing the organisers to pull him from the stage.

“Children are really enthused by it, once Mr Protector steps out they go wild. This here at Priory was the most intense. Overall, the reception from the schools has been really, really great,” Thompson said.

Meanwhile, Mr Protector’s designer, Richard Small, who is hoping to enter York Castle in September, said he felt good when he heard he won the competition, back in 2019

“It came to my mind that I could make something that the children would like and that could inspire them, so I made a rabbit; I wanted to make it friendly,” he told The Gleaner.

His dad, Lester Small, said Richard has been showing artistic talent from basic school level, which he attributes to genes from his mother, Patrice Campbell-Small.

Small said on the night before the deadline to submit entries his son was about to give up.

“I said listen, you’re not going to bed until you draw it. I know you can do it and you’re going to be the winner. The foundation of it is all about God. I will never leave God out of it. We’re a Christian family and it’s all about God, we give Him the glory,” Small said.