CONNECTING THE DOTS: Joining forces for enhanced child rights in Bosnia and Herzegovina
Project Snapshot
Duration: January, 2021 – January, 2023
Project budget: 200.000 EUR
Main Donor: European Union
Donor Contribution:
Other donor’s contributions:
Location: 16 communities in BiH
Implementing Partners: Association Our Children Sarajevo and Ministry for Human Rights and Refugees
Project Status: Ongoing
The project ‘Connecting the Dots – Joining forces for enhanced child rights in Bosnia and Herzegovina’, funded under the European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights (EIDHR), is fully rooted in advocacy and purposeful child protection stakeholder engagement. The project targets 3 key system-level issues in BiH: coordination, accountability and lack of children’s voices in decision-making platforms.
It proposes establishment and operationalization of the online platform for interface and purposeful cross-BiH engagement of relevant CP stakeholders (duty bearers) and children and youth (rights holders).
Partnerships with advocates for children’s rights and state institutions are at the core of this project.
The final objective is system level change - improved overall coordination and collaborative action between government and civil society & strengthening efforts to remove all barriers to children expressing their views and participating in decision making on all matters of concern to them, with special focus on the most vulnerable.
actions in brief
Key Actions
- Interagency, interface platform established and in the function of enhanced coordination and accountability in CP stakeholder action including children's voice and participation
- Purposeful mobilization and result-oriented networking, capacity building and empowerment of children and youth in the areas of child-led research, advocacy for CR/CP advocacy in dialogue and skilful engagement with decision makers
- Participatory and data/evidence-based CR government programming
- BiH government empowered and supported in timely and quality data collection and reports progress on next UN CRC reporting phase.
Project achievements
- Children and youth - 120 girls and 120 boys trained on relevant topics, including the most vulnerable ones, through work with 16 groups of children and youth from 16 municipalities of BiH, aged 12 to 25 years. All groups of children and young people conduct research on the least respected children's rights in their communities. The groups will be supported in the implementation of initiatives at the local level on which will include 240 000 children/youth in total.
- A Committee of Children and Youth has been established and that will together with decision-makers implement two advocacy initiatives.
- Representatives of state, entity, cantonal and local institutions, international agencies and local civil society organizations active in the field of children's rights, representatives of religious institutions, academia, and independent monitoring bodies participated in a two-day strategic planning workshop, laying the foundations for a five-year work and focus of the Coordination Platform
Related Videos
"It is about time our generation gets a seat at the table", says Tin Bender-Dobardžić, member of the Child and Youth Comitee. "