SAN ANTONIO – April marks National Child Abuse Prevention.
To highlight the campaign, ChildSafe, a local child abuse advocacy group, rolled out its annual initiative called Cardboard Kids to spark a conversation about abuse and neglect.
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Started in 2011, the initiative encourages decorating cardboard figures to represent children in the community who may be silently suffering from abuse.
To learn more about CardBoard Kids, KSAT talked with ChildSafe President/CEO Randy McGibeny.
‘People don’t want to have that conversation’
In its inaugural year, the nonprofit group handed out 6,285 cardboard kids, and since then, they have distributed about 1 million total.
The cutouts, mainly decorated by students, each come with their own decoration, such as San Antonio Spurs forward Victor Wembanyama or an Army soldier, McGibeny said.
However, before the kids get down to decorating, they are taught about child abuse and body safety, which he believes is crucial for them.
Once finished, they are distributed to local businesses to display, which happened yesterday on “Reveal Day.”
This is an important date for the nonprofit, as they encourage the community to take pictures with the cutouts and post on social media with the hashtag #CardboardKidsSA, which helps people spark a conversation about protecting children from abuse, McGibeny said.
KSAT asked about the message he hopes the cutouts convey to the public.
He said he wants people to understand that child abuse happens daily in San Antonio.
“The idea behind that is to change the narrative about child abuse,” McGibeny said. “Because when you talk about child abuse, oftentimes, what you wind up doing is people don’t want to go there. Particularly, when you talk about child sexual abuse, people don’t want to have that conversation.”
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