Child Rights Education for Professionals
The dawn of a new movement in Africa?
If we are to develop as a Continent it is critical that children are prioritised. We cannot protect children's rights if professionals who have a duty towards them do not know how to advance children's best interests.
Recently a conference in Tanzania was attended by participants from government, Civil Society and Development Partners from five African countries.
The first seeds of a new African Movement for Child Rights Education to Professionals and Parents was established. Their intention is to mobilise teams in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Ethiopia & Uganda to develop a programme of educating professionals in children's rights.
We will be:
- Mobilizing further key actors nationally to identify national entry points, needs and priorities and how these fit into and can create synergy in a regional African set-up,
- Preparing for our next meeting in early 2011 when a full strategy will be developed,
- Conducting further country based mapping of child rights education so that we can identify emerging questions and patterns.
Key documents:
Read the Conference Report: MS-TCDC (2010). Strengthening child rights education for professionals in East Africa. Arusha, Tanzania.
MS-TCDC (2010). Tanzanian Child Rights Curriculum for Professionals working with young children: A case study. (Please request by email 17MB file si
Long, L.-A. (2010). HEAT in Africa.
Long, L.-A. (2010). The Open University. (Please request by email 3.3MB in size)
Children's Institute, & University of Cape Town (2010). Child rights and child law for health professionals. (Please request by email, 3.5MB in size)
Take action:
Contribute Tanzania's mapping of child rights education for professionals - What's happening, who are the key people, what should be our next steps?
One of the challenges we have with child rights is to demonstrate to everyone the practical impact that following a child rights approach can have on improving children’s lives.
Please send us a story or an account of the difference child rights has made in the life of a child. If you can have the child describe it, even better.
We would like to produce a book of children's stories that demonstrate how their well-being was enhanced as a result of specific experiences they have had because child rights were integrated into a particular activity, observed and/or used.
Please send to .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
The child or others involved will be anonymous and only identified by country and other particulars such as organization unless you believe it of value to identify the child and others involved. In this case we would of course need the proper permissions.
