The Right Stuff magazine

The Right Stuff magazine was designed and written by more than 30 under 18 year-olds from across England, with the aim of promoting young people’s interest in children’s human rights and encouraging them to take action to achieve change for children. Articles cover a range of topics including the experiences of children in care; how children seeking asylum in the UK are treated; student protests; human rights fashion; protest music; and discrimination based on hair colour

Child and youth participation resource guide

Publication:
Child and youth participation resource guide
By Junita Upadhyay. 2006, Bangkok: UNICEF. isbn 974 68507 2 5

This resource guide has been very popular from the moment it came out and it is now available on the web. The good thing about this guide is the categorisation in different areas and the fact that most documents are downloadable from the internet.

From the guide:

The participation of children and youth in schools, community action, media, and governance has gained growing support over the past 15 years. This interest in their active involvement is being stimulated by a greater recognition of children’s and youth citizenship and their rights to expression.

This Child and Youth Participation Resource Guide was jointly compiled by UNICEF East Asia and the Pacific Regional Office and published in June 2006, as a response to a growing need to organize the large and diverse literature on children's participation. It provides information on publications that focus on the protection of children and adolescents from exploitation, violence and abuse, child and youth participation in community and national programmes, HIV prevention, health, hygiene and sanitation and more.

How to Use This Document

This document is divided into several sections focusing on different areas in which the participation of children and youth have been prominent. In each section the author, title and brief summary of the document is included and hyperlinks are given for the full text PDF version for each publication. The link will lead you to an outside web platform. An e-mail address of the appropriate contact person has been provided when the publication cannot be directly linked. Please contact this individual/organization to acquire the document.

The Adolescent Development and Participation Unit at UNICEF Headquarters is presently preparing to make this guide available as an interactive web-based resource for wider use by its staff, partners, governments, policy makers, non-governmental and civil society organizations and especially children and youth themselves.

The Media and Children's Rights

A very useful and reader friendly handbook on children and the media:

The Media and Children's rights

This is a new (2005) edition of a handbook designed to help journalists monitor their government’s performance as signatories to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). The Media and Children’s Rights has been produced by the Bristol-based media ethics charity MediaWise on behalf of UNICEF. The revised and expanded, pocket-sized edition, based on the practical experience of working journalists, includes story ideas drawn from issues raised by the UNCRC and checklists to ensure that media professionals acknowledge children rights in their working practices.

It is a useful addition to “Putting children in the right” (Guidelines for Journalists and media professionals) by the International Federation of Journalists.

Giving children a voice in the media

The Media Code of Conduct is a code developed by the Concerned for Working Children in consultation with children, other organisations working with children’s issues and media persons, on how the media should protect and promote the rights of children in the design, production and distribution of media.

This publication explores issues related to:

• Children as ‘producers’ of Media

Themes include Children as creators of media in society; Creating spaces for children’s expression and opinions of realities around them

• Children as ‘users’ of Media

Themes include Children’s Access to Media; Right to information; Children's Rights Programming of content, Right to protection from harmful content

• Children as ‘subjects’ of Media

Themes include Children as subjects rather than objects of the media; Right to protection from misrepresentation and stereotyping; Right to privacy, confidentiality and dignity

The authors hope this will become an affirmative protocol - a useful self-regulatory tool for all those who respect Children's Rights.

See for more details the article by Kavita Ratna at:

http://www.infochangeindia.org/features410.jsp

Copies of the Media Code to Realise Children’s Rights can be obtained by writing to

Kavita Ratna

The Concerned for Working Children (CWC)
303/2, L.B. Shastri Nagar,
Vimanapura Post,
Bangalore - 560 017
# 91 - 80 - 25234611/25234270
Web: www.workingchild.org

Video as a means to freedom of expression

It is really worthwhile to visit http://www.theoneminutesjr.org/ because it provides opportunities for young people to present their ideas and views on issues of their concern and interest through one minute videos. Many of these videos are on the website – and many are really good. For more information see below and their website.

From the website:

What are one minute videos?
They are sixty-second videos made by young people (between the ages of 12 and 20) from all over the world. Time may be limited in a oneminutesjr video (this challenges the youngsters to form their ideas clearly), but not the freedom to express oneself creatively, which is the basic right of every person.

What is the oneminutesjr network?
It is a non-commercial community without any set political belief or ideology. the network gives young people – especially those who are underprivileged or marginalised – the opportunity to have their voices heard by a broad audience, to share with the world their ideas, dreams, fascinations, anxieties,and viewpoints.

Why does the oneminutsjr network do what it does?

Because we want to:

encourage youth expression, motivating youngsters to articulate their opinions and concerns about their communities, their environments, and about life itself.

create an international platform for the visual communication and exchange of one-minute messages, unhindered by language barriers.

create the opportunity for all young citizens to speak out and make their voices heard by a broad and diverse audience.

provide a space for informal learning, innovation and creativity.

stimulate networking, debate and discussion.

bridge the gap between the media, the arts and young people.

involve marginalised youngsters and give them more of a chance to participate in opinion-making processes.

offer an arena and suitable tools for experiencing diversity – both differences and similarities.