Blog: Child Participation

Tuesday, February 12, 2019 - 08:10 by Coumba Betty Diallo

No to Child marriage with Houda !

" My name is Houda, I am18 years old. I am a freshman at Kankossa high school. and I have been involved in a kid's club for 3 years. We have recreational activities like theatre and singing.

Thanks to World Vision Mauritania's support, we have been trained on children rights and protection.. As a result, we have conducted awareness-raising...

Violence Online: How to put a stop to cyberbullying

By Suelv, 14, Albania

Being a child or a teenager can be pretty rough sometimes. Especially if you’re living in Albania, where children and teenagers are vulnerable, facing violence, abuse and bullying. As a group of children and teens from a small village near the coastal city of Vlora, we decided do some child protection activities and to dedicate our awareness campaigns to some of the most disturbing themes in our area: violence against children and cyber...

Fearless, Confident, and Perseverant, Amar soon became the voice of her community

Amar Ismail is 16 years old and is best known for challenging “everything going wrong” in her community. She is the head of Children’s Committee in Akkar province, in northern Lebanon, as well as being a playwright and an aspiring lawyer who wants to defend children with no identification, who are often persecuted

In the little town of Tal Bire, Amar lives with her parents and seven siblings and goes to “El Hisa” High School, one of...

Truth comes out from the children's mouth

Today, 65.3 million people are on the run in the world. It’s 65.3 million people labelled as “refugees” “migrants”, “internally displaced”, “stateless”, or “asylum seekers” on the run. Ultimately, it’s 65.3 million HUMANS that are running today. All are trying to save their lives and the lives of their loved ones with the hope that they might have a better, hopeful, dignifying and peaceful future. Nearly half of these 65.3 million humans are...

Child participation: it’s about the adults, too

A few weeks ago when I was coming out of a local restaurant, I heard a young child give his mother his thoughts on how she should handle a particular situation at the child’s school. Without missing a beat, the mother – clearly exasperated – yelled at her child, “I’m a grown up. I do not need your input!” My heart fell.

By now, much of the development community has grown to understand that “child participation” is about ensuring...

Child Parliament empowers children in Bangladesh

While thinking about a blog topic to write, I decided to focus on the Child Parliament in Bangladesh. This is, in my opinion, an excellent space for children to make their voices heard in decision-making processes.

The Child Parliament is the advocacy wing of the National Children’s Task Force, a well-known children’s organisation established primarily to monitor the implementation of the National Plan of Action (adopted in 2002-2006) against sexual abuse and...

Violence at the forefront of children’s concerns

‘Violence against children’ is a phrase that we often hear. It may affect us for a few moments, allowing us to reflect, feel the pain and regret. It may be just words on paper. It may be statements out of nowhere that have nothing to do with us.

it is evident that children are putting the issue of violence at the forefront of their concerns.

However, the phenomenon of violence against children keeps spreading. With the...

I, Millennium Youth, at the European Development Days 2015

By Olga, Millenium Youth from Latvia

One day I was going out of school.. and suddenly I went to the information desk which stands in a dark corner where no one ever looks. There I saw an advertisement about a contest “Millennium Youth”. The idea to win a great opportunity to go to Brussels and speak with high-level politicians seemed completely unbelievable! But I decided to participate anyway! There was a contest - to do something in a week that...

Building community around child participation and rights

World Vision’s understanding of children and development continues to evolve. We’ve moved from needs-based service delivery to a child focused community based approach. We’ve embedded rights-based approaches as a strategy to improve child well-being, and changed our perspective of girls and boys as recipients of aid to active contributors and assets for development.

This shift hasn’t been without its critics. Within an organisation with such diverse faith and cultural...

Taking children’s views seriously

By Patricio Cuevas-Parra, senior policy advisor, Advocacy and Justice for Children - WVI

I truly know what it feels like to be voiceless, I was born in a generation where being a child meant having little space to express our feelings and opinions. This led me to ponder on what lessons we can draw from influential people on the international stage and their views on the inclusion of children and young people.

Last week, I attended "The Post-2015 Agenda and the...