Heroes in Action: Child Advocates in South Africa

Children as advocates, involved in the development of the new Children's Bill in South Africa. This article in Children, Youth and Environments 17(3), 2007 is a case study reflecting on the experiences of the children to contribute their views and ideas to the legislative process.

Here is the abstract as presented in the journal:

Dikwankwetla – Children in Action is the name of an advocacy group of children who participated in the deliberations around the new Children’s Bill in South Africa. Their participation in a legislative process broadens the scope of venues for children’s participation, and challenges the discourse about child participation at a new level. It also raises important conceptual questions about the extent to which children can participate in legislative processes. This paper presents the efforts of Dikwankwetla as a case study, reflecting on its practice and challenges. It interrogates children’s agency in this process, and argues that childhood must be re-conceptualized to recognize that children are political actors in their environments. Looking at the concepts of power and representation, it recognizes the need for a shift in the adult-child relationship, from one based on control to one based on rights and responsibilities. More importantly, it reflects on the implications of facilitating children’s participation in the context of a developing country, where socio-economic and cultural conditions raise different challenges from those in the developed world.

And here is the report of the evaluation of the project by the Children's Institute in Cape Town:

Dikwankwetla – Children in Action Project Evaluation Workshop Report

Children's Protagonism - Distant Learning Course

Exciting things are happening in distant learning courses on children's protagonism, children's rights and concepts of childhood.

The Institute for the Formation of Educators of Working Youth, Adolescents and Children of Latin America and the Caribbean (IFEJANT) has opened an on-line course on "old and new paradigms of childhood". The duration is from March 24 - June 27 2008.

Fees are very reasonable: 50 (fifty) USD for the full course.

For that amount you will get:
1. The support through email of a full-time teacher from a pool of experts on issues of family and childhood
2. Access to thought provoking (and often non-mainstream and therefore little known) literature on childhood, children's rights, children's participation and protagonism
3. Access to a Latin American discourse on childhood and children's rights through exclusive translations into English of texts that have been only published in Spanish
4. A certificate of IFEJANT and the School for Social Work of the Main National University of San Marcos in Lima, Peru (indicating the academic hours fulfilled)

The course content:

Unit 1
The concept of Childhood
The vision of childhood in the Andean and Amazonian Worlds
Approaches and paradigms in childhood cultures

Unit 2
Searching for a new pedagogic thinking
Child dignity
Dismissing the language we use with children - metacommunication
Advancing towards cultures that promote learning communities

Unit 3
A childhood with rights - from an object to a subject with rights - the child as a social actor
Rights and duties of children in comparative legislation - Evaluation of the rights situation of girls, boys and adolescents in different parts of the world.

The course will consist of reading a number of key texts followed by written assignments and self-reflection.

Enrollment: http://www.ifejants.org/ Scroll down the page, download and fill in the admission card and send it to: Ifejants@hotmail.com

Minors and young migrants’ involvement in errant mobility and sex work within the European Union

Minors and young migrants’ involvement in errant mobility and sex work within the European Union. By Nick Mai. 2007

The troubling fate of young migrants in Europe is the subject of this research paper by Dr. Nick Mai from the London Metropolitan University, that provides interesting research and an unconventional view on the shortcomings of standard protection mechanisms.

Perhaps, the most important aim of this study is to provide people and institutions carrying out social intervention projects targeting minor and young migrants with strategic qualitative information about their migration projects and the strategies of survival they engage in, with a specific focus on prostitution. With this study, we hope to show that selling sex can be, for some, the only known viable way to meet many combined cultural, economic, psychological and social needs: to be perceived as likeable and successful, to have a sexual outlet, to be independent economically, to find excitement and adventure, to have new experiences, to send money home, to find a suitable accommodation, to receive care and attention, to challenge and receive moral boundaries, to survive, to detach from parents, to grow up.
For social intervention to become an efficient alternative to errance, all of these needs and the reasons and dynamics underlining them must be recognised and addressed at the same time. The research starts from the de-construction of the victimising paradigms (trafficking, exploitation, etc.) shaping research and social intervention targeting unaccompanied minors and errant migrants. Acknowledging the agency of the subjects involved, the complexity of their needs and priority and the reasons at the basis of their affective detachment from ‘home’ is the only way to respond efficiently to their needs through social interventions. (pages 4-5)

Children hold local governments acccountable

Children hold local governments accountable

Following is a report by Concerned for Working Children (CWC) about children’s involvement in local government in India.

The report uses terminology which is commonly used in India but may be difficult to understand for those who are not familiar with it. I therefore attached an explanation about the terminology at the end of the report.

The first set of Children's Grama Sabhas - 2007 underway in Karnataka

The reports from the first set of Children's Grama Sabhas 2007 stand testimony to how a well facilitated process of Children's Grama Sabhas not only holds the local government accountable to children and ensures their commitment to children's rights, but also has a powerful impact on strengthening local governance.

The first Children's Grama Sabha report is from Halli Hole, a remote Panchayat of Udupi District, one of the field programme areas of the Concerned for Working Children. Hundreds of children took part in this Sabha last week in which the Panchayat reported back to children about the successful implementation of 19 Programmes that are a direct result of the issues raised by children during Children's Grama Sabha - 2006. These include constructions of toilets in schools and improved access to basic facilities and services, not only for children, but for the entire community. The President of the Panchayat, Shankar Narayan Chatra, said 'It is now absolutely clear to me why children's participation is essential to strengthen local governments. Children do not only list their problems, they also describe the implications of the problems and the importance of addressing them. This has been extremely useful to us to develop our action plans.'

750 children took part in the Children's Grama Sabha at Hardalli Mandalli, also in Udipi District. After carrying out a huge procession in which children voiced their issues, they made detailed presentations about a range of demands, including the need for a community hall for the local high school, water facilities and toilets for many homes that lack them. Hari Prasad Shetty, the President made a special reference to the high quality of children's presentation. He pointed out that "Children have collected the background data and have presented their issues in a very concise matter. We are committed to develop actions plans for their problems in consultation with them." (Please see photographs attached)

Children and adolescents are critical observers of their own condition and should be participants in decisions concerning themselves and their lives. A practical experience of participatory democracy is essential for the moulding of the 'new citizen'. They need to understand and prepare for governance and citizenship and therefore must be enabled to interact in a constructive and meaningful way with local governments at all levels. For children's participation to be truly productive and not just tokenistic the State should create structures for children to; first of all; access their local governments that are closest and most accessible to them.

It may be recalled that Panchayat Raj Ministry, Government of Karnataka issued an Order (638 - 2007 dated 30.10.2007) which makes it mandatory for all Panchayats to provide an opportunity for children to articulate their issues directly with their elected representatives, and emphasises the need for the Panchayats to report back on the action taken regarding the issues flagged by children is a very important step in this direction. It is equally important that the State now conducts systematic capacity building programmes in order to equip the Panchayats, officials and all civil society groups that will be engaged with this process to ensure that Children's Grama Sabhas realise their full potential.

Terminology explained:

India has a federal system of governance – with a Central Government and each state having its own State Government. Within each State, a three tier local government system exists in the rural areas.

The lowest level of local governance (and according to the Indian constitution, the most important) is the Panchayat. This consists of several villages - and is the lowest democratically elected government and the one closest to the people and children. All the plans and the identification of beneficiaries for government schemes and the like are and should be carried out at this level.

Higher than that is the Taluk Panchayat - at the block level. This is more the monitoring body - and also the fund-disbursal body. In Kundapur Taluk, for example, there are 56 Panchayats.

Above this is the District/Zilla Panchayat. This also has a monitoring role as well as a role to inform the policies of the State Government. In Udupi District, for example, there are 3 Taluks (Kundapur, Karkala and Udupi) and 147 Panchayats.

The Children's Grama Sabhas are being held at the level of the Panchayats.It is a meeting of all the children of the Panchayat to discuss issues of their concern and negotiate with concerened officials and elected bodies.

The three tiers mentioned above are democratically elected. The elections at the Panchayat level are supposed to be de-linked from political parties - however, in reality, most often there are party affiliations. Good news is that there are quite a large number of independent candidates in the Panchayat Elections - and the members of Namma Sabha are also considering contesting these elections as representatives of their organisation.

Namma Sabha is an association of youth, composed of artisans, crafts persons and others engaged in various occupations.

See also this webpage for further explanations about terminology.

For more information contact:

Kavita Ratna
Director - Communications
The Concerned for Working Children
303/2, L.B. Shastri Nagar
Vimanapura Post
Annasandra Palya
Bangalore - 560 017
Phones: 0091 80 25234270, 2523461
Email: cwcblr@vsnl.com

The issue was also covered in the Hindu, one of India's national papers on November 23, 2007, highlighting different views on the issue of children's involvement in panchayat raj institutions:

Fiat on children's participation in gram sabhas raises eyebrows

Home alone: Perspectives of home-working children

Home Alone - León, Nicaragua

Home-working children, "are rarely taken into consideration in discussions about children's rights and child work since they do not have salaried work, and they are not 'in the streets'. These children run a major risk of having their rights violated as they often live in poverty and are left at home without any adult supervision on a regular basis. Still, poor families are dependent on these children while parents and older siblings are working outside the home."

Home Alone is a participatory action research project addressing children who work as caretakers for younger siblings in León, Nicaragua. The purpose of the project is to help León's home-working children improve their situation by involving them in the identification of their problems and empowering them to propose interventions and solutions based on their own experience. Home Alone also aims to ensure that the general public and the media are made aware of these children's problems and perspectives, as well as to advocate for the recognition of this group's rights by people in positions to make structural changes to improve the situation.

The project's central approach is encouraging and enabling children to share their knowledge and ideas, both about their own situation and about how to support other children in taking part in the issues that affect them. This approach is based on the premise that children have the potential and capacity to contribute to their own development. To that end, Home Alone draws on a series of methodologies and tools that facilitate the participation of children in all phases of the research process: from the gathering of the data to the analysis and the dissemination of the results. In this sense, the research is described as "participatory action".

Specifically, organisers work to engage children to participate through fun, attractive, and meaningful activities. Photography, video, child-led interviews, and advocacy are central elements. Some of the particular techniques include:

Children are familiarised with the use of single-use cameras so that they can document whichever elements of their everyday lives, as well as the lives of their brothers and sisters, that they choose. The objective is to collect authentic information about home-working children's reality and interests with a minimum of guidance or direction from researchers. Participants later act as storytellers in a video documentary by explaining in their own words the meaning of the images they have created. Using the children's own photographs as visual stimuli during the interviews is a technique for engaging children in the process of interpreting, analysing, and categorising the collected data (the photographs). The aim here is to use face-to-face communication, expressed through the video medium, to enable children to communicate their concerns in their own environment, to be shared with influential policy makers in these alternative types of "meetings"

As of October 2004, approximately 300 photographs taken by the children involved in the project had been printed. Organisers state that "the experiences in the Home Alone project clearly show that children are very capable taking photographs and that they really like the visual story-telling method as photography offers." They stress that the children and their families have given informed consent for the use of the photographs by the researchers and the communicators, and are consulted each time a photograph is considered for use in different media as part of the project.

The Barcelona-based CrozzCom - Communication for the Development in Action is an NGO working to facilitate collaboration with other NGOs, academics, media professionals, and development practitioners, especially those working to protect children's rights. Organisers say "We believe that visual methods and tools, such as video and photography have much to offer for researchers and development practitioners that work for the wellbeing of children".

Click here for a related report, "Child Interviews: Experiences from the Home Alone Project."

Click here for a related summary, Home Alone - Photography Gives Strength and Comfort to Nicaraguan Children Left Behind.

For more information, contact:
Lena Wall
Project and Communication Manager
Home Alone Project
CrozzCom
Calle Mayor 16, piso 1º
08960 Sant Just Desvern
SPAIN
Tel.: +34933716811
Mobile: +34607222930
crozzcom@yahoo.es

Source
Communication Initiative site

How can we define citizenship in childhood?

How can we define citizenship in childhood?, by Judith Ennew, Centre for Family Research, University of Cambridge in: HCPDS, Working Paper Series, Volume 10 Number 12, October 2000.

This article by Judith Ennew for the Harvard Centre for Population and Development Studies looks at civil and political rights of children.

“Children and youth have been activists in the forefront of political struggles, such as the fight against Apartheid in South Africa. Yet this is more likely to be documented (especially since the overthrow of that system) as the victimisation of children than as child political participation. Child soldiers likewise are usually regarded as victims rather than freedom fighters. With the exception of some writers in Latin America there seems to be little discourse even now about children as ‘protagonists’ who take a leading role in social change.” (p. 5).

Abstract:
This paper examines some of the dilemmas involved in implementing children's civil rights and freedoms. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) represents a challenge to all states party to consider children’s rights outside the traditional concerns with protecting children from harm and providing for their needs. Ideas about children’s civil rights and freedoms are often wrongly limited to the so-called ‘participation’ articles (12-15). These are tempered in the CRC by the need to take into consideration ‘the age and maturity of the child’ and in social life in general by adult control over areas in which children can participate and ways in which they are allowed to do so. Thus children’s political participation is often trivialised. Or limited to local-level democracy that is regarded as part of socialisation. Nevertheless it can be argued that, in modern representative democracies, there is little difference in practice between the citizenship rights of adults and children. One related question is whether age is a sufficient reason to exclude citizens from franchise. Indeed, to ask how citizenship is defined in childhood is to raise questions about the rights and duties of all citizens.

The article looks into:

The civil and political rights of children in the CRC
Children’s political action
Children’s voices articulating adult agenda’s
Children’s resistance as a form of (unrecognised) participation
Children's rights and democracy
The grounds for excluding children from franchise
The political development of children
Ages, stages and the passing of time

Recognising children as social agents

Researching Children’s Morality: developing research methods that allow children’s involvement in discourses relevant to their everyday lives.
by Sam Frankel, in: Childhoods Today Online Journal, Volume 1 Issue 1 - July 2007

The article describes how young children can be involved in research as long as research methods are relevant to the children's own context and understanding. Among other methods, the author details how he developed a questionnaire by combining it with an audio recording that not only captured interest of the children but also resulted in accurate processing and a high response to the questions. The research makes a case to see children as social agents, "who draw and develop meaning based on their own social experiences. Without this move to engage children in the context of the social world they inhabit, policy and practice will remain based on generalisations, clouded by adult perceptions of childhood (Mayall, 2002; Oakley, 1994)." (p.21)

From the journal:

Abstract: Contemporary children’s childhoods are full of discourses about children and right and wrong. However, the foundation for these moral debates is often based on adult assumptions about children rather than reliable knowledge obtained from them. This article therefore seeks to explore ways in which children can be involved in the research process, such that their voices can be heard. Through looking at a number of creative research it argues that children can be competent and legitimate research partners within moral discourses, providing data that can inform more effective policy and practice.

(p.1)

The research

".... looked at the way in which children experience morality within their everyday lives and endeavours to explore ways in which children as social agents can be legitimate and competent partners in a quest for understanding. Such work can then be used as a foundation for policy makers to move away from a reliance on adult assumptions, allowing them to draw on reliable knowledge of children’s childhoods."

(p.2)

The African Movement of Working Children and Youth

The African Movement of Working Children and Youth

The AMWCY was set up in 1994. As of March 2007, the African Movement of Working Children and Youth had 80 associations, in as many as 64 towns of 20 African countries. It is made up of about 728 grassroots groups including more than 37,000 active members. Members include housemaids, girls who are vendors in the market, independent working children and youth in streets and markets, as well as female & male apprentices. 70% of members are below 18, and 53% of members are girls. More facts (in French) including all contact details of the associations can be found in the latest annual bulletin of the movement: "WCY face the challenge, volume 7".

The Working Children and Youth began by organising themselves in their working and living places. They set up associations in their own towns in order to strengthen their solidarity and also gain respect from authorities, as well as from communities. From 1996 onward, the AMWCY noted that the promotion of their rights should be fulfilled through concretisation.

Movement of Working Children and Youth organisational set up
Grassroots groups from the same town get together in Associations of WCYs (AWCY), in the same area. Several AWCY are often created in the same country. They form themselves into a National Association or into a National Coordination of AWCY.

During the African meetings of the AMWCY (every 2 years), these Associations or Coordinations elect a female or male delegate (below 18 years) who will represent them at the Regional Commission of the AMWCY which meets once a year.

The AMWCY has developed clear criteria to become a member of the movement (such as being active for at least one year, providing an annual report, and having an action plan). At present 20 associations are being considered to become members.

Activities of the Movement of Working Children and Youth

• Technical assistance
• Promotion of the rights
• Lobbying
• Fight against child trafficking
• Income Generating Activities (IGAs)
• Technical assistancePromotion of their rights

The WCY articuled 12 rights which they consider to be the backbone for all WCY in 64 African towns. They match children’s rights, mentioned in the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and in the African Charter on Human Rights and Children’s Welfare, but they are very specific towards the situation of working children such as the right to remain in the village.
Promotion of these rights can be voiced through “information” and “implementation” activities. Information about the 12 rights is dispatched to the WCYs themselves, so they can be aware of them in order to be able to defend and promote those rights by themselves. This information also gets to the public through direct contacts, or via the media.

ENDA Jeunesse Action International
The Jeunesse Action team from ENDA Tiers Monde supports children living in difficult conditions. Its objectives are to strengthen children's organisation on the local, national and regional levels. They facilitate exchange, training and communication between organisations and supporting institutions that assist children living in difficult conditions in more than 60 towns in 20 African countries. The International Office in Dakar, coordinates the regional activities of the Calao Programme. It includes three working groups which are coordinated by a Committee made up of three persons in charge and of a regional coordinator.

WCY face the challenge is an annual news bulletin of the African Movement of Working Children and Youth published by Enda Tiers Monde, Jeunesse Action in Dakar. The editorial committee is made up of WCYs with the assistance form the Dakar Jeunesse Action team. In this bulletin, we find articles, interviews, impressions, portraits, poems, games, etc. produced by the WCYs and their supporting structures from Africa and Latin America. It is aimed at the general public, authorities, decision-makers informing them about the life, problems and daily fight WCYs go through.

“Calao Express” is a monthly electronic (through Email) news bulletin published by Enda Tiers Monde, Jeunesse Action in Dakar, which was first released in February 2005. At a click, one can get lots of information on WCYs activities, as well as their supporting institutions and NGOs and other organisations in Africa and worldwide in French, English, Portuguese, Italian and German.