Ending violence against children requires addressing the underlying causes and changing the attitudes, norms and practices among individuals and societies that condone and approve such behaviours. The prevalence of violence against children in Jordan, especially in schools, has become a disturbing reality.

In this context, a fictional televised drama series was produced in an educational and entertaining manner to provide visualization of the prevalent bullying and to help teenage girls and boys (13-16 years) focus on the issue of bullying and physical violence. In a creative and informative narrative, the drama series exhibits the various forms of bullying, its consequences and the kind of assistance/services that are available to this age group.

The program titled “Shababeek “ (meaning windows in Arabic) drew upon input from key informant interviews (KIIs) with parents, counsellors, teachers and other focus group discussions that comprised children between the ages of 13 to 16 from diverse backgrounds. The emerging lessons learned provided the groundwork on which a behavioural matrix, key messages, and content (facts and scripts) for the drama series were designed. Besides that, guidelines and instructions have been created for teachers including activity and assessment tools to use after each session to engage the target audience in fruitful discussions about the content of the episodes.

Upon its adoption by the Ministry of Education and the Committee for Social Behavioural Change, this program will be launched in schools and institutions (community centres) to contribute to achieving the overall goal of ending physical violence and bullying by 50% by 2021.