Protecting Children's Rights in Africa
From SOUL BEAT AFRICA - where communication and media are central to AFRICA's social and economic development
In this issue of The Soul Beat:
* BACKGROUND INFORMATION on children's wellbeing
* Communication to advance CHILDREN'S RIGHTS IN GENERAL
* Initiatives and research on CHILDREN'S RIGHTS AND THE MEDIA
* Resources and projects on CHILDREN'S RIGHTS AND HIV/AIDS
* Research and resources on PROTECTING CHILDREN FROM ABUSE
* AWARD and TRAINING OPPORTUNITY related to children's rights
This issue of The Soul Beat newsletter focuses on communication and children's rights. It offers a selection of programme experiences, strategic thinking documents, and resources which look at how communication can protect and promote the rights of children in general, and more specifically children's rights in relation to the media, HIV and AIDS, and abuse and exploitation.
If you would like your organisation's communication work or research and resource documents to be featured on the Soul Beat Africa website and in The Soul Beat newsletters, please contact soulbeat@comminit.com
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For some background information on the state of child wellbeing, please see these two documents:
The African Report on Child Wellbeing 2008: How Child-friendly are African Governments? (African Child Policy Forum, 2008)
State of the World's Children - Special Edition (UNICEF, 2009)
1. AfricaWide Movement for Children - Africa
This is a network of child-focused organisations and institutions, and individual child activists in Africa. Launched in May 2008, the Movement intends to put children on the African political and public agenda and campaign for the protection and realisation of the rights and well-being of children. The main objectives of the Movement are to contribute to the emergence of an African voice for children; advocate and lobby for the protection and promotion of African children's best interests; promote solidarity and provide mutual support amongst child rights organisations; and promote accountability amongst child rights organisations with respect to the children under their care.
Click here for the online contact form.
2. Advancing Children's Rights: A Guide for Civil Society Organisations On How to Engage with the African Committee of Experts On the Rights and Welfare of the Child
by Frances Sheahan
This guide, produced by Plan and Save the Children Sweden in 2009, looks at how civil society organisations can best engage with the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, the body responsible for monitoring the implementation and ensuring the protection of the rights laid out in the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (ACRWC). This guide is intended to be a comprehensive resource for finding out more about the Charter and the Committee and is designed to provide practical information for organisations wishing to engage with the Committee.
3. TunaHAKI (We Have a Right) Centre for Child Development - Tanzania
The TunaHAKI Centre for Child Development is an arts-based shelter for children orphaned by AIDS and street kids in Moshi, Kilimanjaro, Tanzania. TunaHAKI, Swahili for "We Have a Right," is based on the belief that children have the right to a better life and to live in a nurturing environment. The Centre provides children with shelter, food, clothing, medical care, and schooling, and also builds skills in the performing arts. The Centre was founded in 1998 by local artist David Ryatula, who believed that by using an arts and performance focus, the confidence, self-esteem, and future of these children would improve.
Contact info@tunahakichildren.org OR tunahakikids@yahoo.com OR info@tunahakicanada.org
4. Theatre for Life: Health Information, Community Mobilisation and Child Rights - A Qualitative Evaluation
by Alex Mavrocordatos
This document, written for United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) Sudan by the Centre for the Arts in Development Communications (cdcArts) in 2004, presents a qualitative evaluation of the Theatre for Life (TFL) programme, which is part of UNICEF Sudan's Child Friendly Community Initiative (CFCI). The programme is rooted in the schools of villages where the CFCI is active. Children perform plays designed to deliver 10 key messages around child protection, education, and (more recently) child survival and child rights.
5. Tundu Joor - Senegal
Initiated in 2005, Tundu Joor was a project by Plan Senegal and Nokia that was designed to raise awareness on child rights through music performed by both professional and young grassroots musicians in Senegal. The project aimed to ensure that children's rights are widely known and respected. Twenty-seven young Senegalese artists together with professional musicians created the album called Tundu Joor, which contained songs about a variety of child rights issues.
Contact childrenmedia@plan-international.org
CHILDREN'S RIGHTS AND THE MEDIA
6. Editorial Guidelines and Principles for Reporting on Children in the Media 2008 A Snapshot of Children in Zambian News
by Bob Steele
Produced by Media Monitoring Africa (MMA) in collaboration with Save the Children-Sweden in Zambia, these guidelines are intended to create awareness on how the media should report on children, and provide journalists with the necessary information to enable children's voices to become a part of daily media coverage, without violating children's rights. They are also intended as a tool for editors, providing references to guidelines and laws that may be useful during the production of news related to children.
7. Sakaza Mngani: Kidz Community Radio Project
by Fiona Lloyd
Since 2003, the Institute for the Advancement of Journalism, through its Kidz Radio training projects, has been working to transform the vision of the African Children’s Charter into reality by developing training for children’s media. This handbook, published in 2009, tells the story of this journey through the voices of the children themselves, as well as through the experiences of the professional media practitioners and children's organisations.
8. Children's Views Not in the News: Portrayal of Children in South African Print Media 2009
by Ronell Naidoo
This report, published by Media Monitoring Africa (MMA), is designed to encourage professional and ethical reporting on children by outlining and discussing some of the most recent findings from a study on children’s representation in the South African media, as monitored from May 17 to August 30 2009. Monitoring conducted by Media Monitoring Africa (MMA) in 2003 as part of the Empowering Children and the Media (ECM) strategy, showed that only 6% of all news included children. According to the report, the latest data reveals that representation of children has improved marginally to 8.4% of all news monitored in 2009. The monitoring shows that not only are children’s issues frequently sidelined, but un-careful and unethical reporting often leads to further violations of their rights.
9. Kuziva Mbuya Huudzwa and Luthando: Children's Rights Radio - Zimbabwe
Children First, in conjunction with Population Services International (PSI) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), has produced two radio dramas on children's rights in Zimbabwe. Launched in November 2009, the dramas, which were produced in two local languages, Shona and Ndebele, are part of a larger campaign to promote the protection and rights of children.
Contact Susan Kajura bantwana@worlded.org
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MORE INFORMATION ON CHILDREN ON THE SOUL BEAT AFRICA WEBSITE
If you are looking for more information on children in Africa, go to the ALL SECTIONS page on the Soul Beat Africa website. This page gives you the full range of summaries on the Soul Beat Africa website from all knowledge sections e.g. Programme Experiences, Evaluations, Strategic Thinking documents, Materials, etc.). Under Regions, choose Africa (or a country/countries of your choice), and under Development Issues select children and then submit.
The search results will include all summaries on the Soul Beat Africa website that deal with children in Africa.
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CHILDREN'S RIGHTS AND HIV/AIDS
10. Children’s Voices - Namibia
Children’s Voices is a project run by the Namibian non-governmental organisation Positive Vibes (PV). The project is designed to educate children about their rights by giving them the space and skills to express themselves through videos, photography, radio, and arts. In addition, the project works to facilitate dialogue between children and adults around the needs of children in the context of HIV and AIDS.
Contact info@positivevibes.org
11. The African Child Speaks "Finding our Rights in the Time of HIV" - The Story of Rudo and Themba - Comic Book
This comic book, published by Southern Africa HIV and AIDS Information Dissemination Service (SAfAIDS) in 2009 with support from the Bernard van Leer Foundation, has been developed as part of a broader project to ensure that child rights are recognised and upheld within communities. In particular, the comic book aims to enhance children’s confidence and understanding of their rights and responsibilities within their own cultural context and social norms. In addition, it aims to strengthen their ability to make decisions through a rights-based perspective, reduce their personal risk of HIV infection, and enhance their abilities to cope with the many impacts of the HIV epidemic.
12. Children to the Fore! An Easy-to-Use Training Handbook that Promotes Child Rights and Cultural Issues in the Face of HIV in Southern Africa
Produced by the Southern Africa HIV and AIDS Information Dissemination Service (SAfAIDS) in 2009, this handbook is designed to be an easy-to-use training handbook to promote child rights and cultural issues in the face of HIV in southern Africa. It is intended for use by trainers at all levels who recognise the need to respect child rights in the community, in the context of their culture and in relation to HIV and AIDS. The production was guided by a series of community dialogue meetings hosted by SAfAIDS, with support from the Bernard van Leer Foundation.
PROTECTING CHILDREN FROM EXPLOITATION AND ABUSE
13. Silent Suffering: The Psychosocial Impact of War, HIV, and Other High-risk Situations on Girls and Boys in West and Central Africa
by Jenny Morgan and Alice Behrendt
This report from 2009 is the product of a five-country study by Plan International and Family Health International (FHI) to examine some of West Africa's most vulnerable children. Researchers interviewed more than 1,000 adolescents in Cameroon, Burkina Faso, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Togo with the aim of assessing the mental health and psychological needs of the children, some but not all of whom had often experienced conflict, trafficking, or the loss of a parent. The study found that the children – both those that had experienced conflict, trafficking, or loss and those that had not - experienced high levels of domestic, sexual, and community violence. The authors suggest this may be due to a culture of violence left in the wake of conflict during which both children and adults experienced high rates of trauma. Although the authors point to many factors that help children cope with violence, they advocate for a wide range of interventions to address this issue including greater community involvement, increased attention from community radio stations, and the creation of safe spaces.
14. Training Manual to Fight Trafficking in Children for Labour, Sexual and Other Forms of Exploitation
This training package is designed to contribute to the work of governments, workers' and employers' organisations, international organisations, and non-governmental organisations in ending child trafficking. As part of their efforts to support the Global Initiative to Fight Human Trafficking (UN.GIFT), the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) set up an Expert Group on Child Trafficking to create the 3 textbooks, exercise book, and electronic guide for facilitators that constitute this package.
15. Hard Work, Long Hours, and Little Pay: Research with Children Working on Tobacco Farms in Malawi
by Glynis Clacherty
This report, published by Plan International in 2009, describes a participatory study conducted with children in Malawi who had worked full-time on tobacco farms during the 2007/2008 season. The study was designed to find out how children themselves experience and understand the work they do, as well as what they see as the best forms of intervention. The research is intended to be used to inform the work Plan and its partners in Malawi are doing to raise awareness of child labour on tobacco farms, to advocate for changed conditions, and to develop interventions for the affected children.
16. Increasing Visibility and Promoting Policy Action to Tackle Sexual Exploitation in and Around Schools in Africa: A Briefing Paper with a Focus on West Africa
by Nicola Jones and Jessica Espey
This report, published by Plan International in 2008, seeks to raise awareness of the problem of sexual exploitation in and around schools in the West African region. The objective of the report is to support Plan's regional "Learn Without Fear" campaign and to contribute evidence to the global debate on sexual exploitation in and around schools and children in general. According to the report, much of what has been published on violence against children and sexual violence in particular assumes that the majority of violence occurs within the private space of the home. Because of this, there is very little record of the violence that occurs in other settings, and as a result school-based sexual violence against children has remained largely invisible. The report includes a number of examples of good practice in tackling child sexual exploitation in school settings and offers a list of recommendations which include raising awareness and information sharing.
17. Empower Children and Communities against Abuse (ECCA) - Uganda
Founded in 2002 by a team of human rights activists and child welfare practitioners, Empower Children and Communities against Abuse (ECCA) is a non-profit organisation that works to empower in- and out-of-school children and communities to work together against all forms of gender-based violence (GBV) in Uganda. The organisation works through support programmes, lobbying and advocacy, and capacity building.
Contact ecca@eccauganda.com
18. Our Right to Be Protected From Violence: Activities for Learning and Taking Action for Children and Young People
by Susan Fountain
This online booklet, published by the Secretariat of the United Nations (UN) Secretary-General’s Study on Violence against Children in 2007, is for adults, youth leaders, and peer educators who work with groups of young people aged 12–18 in community centres, youth groups, and other settings. The book gives information about the UN Study on Violence Against Children, activities that can be used to help others learn about these issues, and ideas for taking action against violence.
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Share your Story of how Soul Beat Africa has Influenced your Work
Soul Beat Africa has a new feature on the Soul Beat website called "CI Stories". It is an online place for Soul Beat network members to share details of any collaborations or interactions that have been sparked by an item which was featured on the Soul Beat Africa website or in our e-magazines. Click here to view existing stories and to submit your story.
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AWARDS and TRAINING
Go to the Awards and Training sections to view the full listing which include these related to children:
19. World's Children's Prize for the Rights of the Child (WCPRC)
Deadline: January 5 2011
The World's Children's Prize for the Rights of the Child (WCPRC) is awarded to three individuals or organisations for outstanding contributions on behalf of the rights of the child.
20. Child Rights Course 2010 (April 12 - 16 2010) Arusha, Tanzania
This course, run by MS Training Centre for Development Cooperation (MS-TCDC), seeks to offer participants a deeper understanding of child rights so that they are able to apply those rights in practice when working with younger children.
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Related previous issues of The Soul Beat newsletter include:
The Soul Beat 111 - Media and Children
The Soul Beat 89 – Protecting Africa’s Children
The Soul Beat 24 – Street Children
Click here to view all archived editions of The Soul Beat Newsletter.
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