Makindye Secondary School, Kampala, Prom and Its Viral Video Clips: When Everybody Watched the Children, and Nobody Watched Over Them
When Everybody Watched the Children, and Nobody Watched Over Them
A school prom in Kampala is travelling across Africa and beyond.
The clips are being watched.
Shared.
Applauded.
Debated.
But beneath the creativity, colour, and spectacle lies a safeguarding question we must not avoid.
Some children were styled as glamorous adults.
Some were presented in ways that exposed their developing bodies to the adult gaze.
One child appeared visibly pregnant.
Others were presented as corpses, conquerors, and the conquered.
The question is not whether the children were creative.
They were.
The question is:
Who dressed them?
Who conceived the brief?
Who approved it?
Who filmed it?
Who uploaded it?
Who counted the likes?
The child is not the problem.
A child’s imagination reaches.
It stretches.
Sometimes it overreaches.
That is part of childhood.
The imagination did not fail.
The adults did.
There is a difference between being watched and being watched over.
To be watched is to be seen.
To be watched over is to be protected.
On that carpet, the children were watched by thousands.
Now, perhaps, by millions.
But were they truly watched over?
Scripture says:
“The LORD is thy keeper.”
— Psalm 121:5
That is what children need.
Not merely an audience.
Keepers.
Adults who pause before the applause.
Adults who ask:
Who are we asking this child to become, even if only for one night?
And who might this child remain online for the rest of his or her life?
Every costume teaches.
Every role forms.
Every applause reinforces.
This is not a call to place the children on trial.
It is a call to place adult judgment under scrutiny.
Because safeguarding begins where adult foresight meets childhood innocence.
Enlightenment Is Superior to Enforcement®
Think the CHILD… Think TODAY… Think the FUTURE®
