This is a post I started typing in April, days before I went to Sweden. I'll post another one sometime about my trip.
Started in 2000, by Magnus
Bergmar, from Sweden, the World’s Children’s Prize for the Rights of the Child (WCP)
is the world’s largest children’s rights organisation. The focus is on children
under the age of 18. Central to the programme is a magazine called The Globe,
which is published annually, and is available in a few languages. It is
distributed to countries around the world, where appointed people make sure
school children get access to it. Teachers are trained how to use the magazine
in their classrooms, and this is how the WCP message of children’s rights is
spread to all corners of the earth.
On 20 November 1989, the United
Nations adopted the Convention on the Rights of the Child. These rights are set
out in The Globe, in child-friendly language.
This is an extract from the Globe:
Basic principles of the Convention:
• All children are equal and have the same
rights.
• Every child has the right to have his or
her basic needs fulfilled.
• Every child has the right to protection
from abuse and exploitation.
• Every child has the right to express his or
her opinion and to be respected.
What else is in the magazine? The
current book includes the following, i.a.:
-
What is the World’s Children’s Prize?
-
Meet the Child Jury
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How are the world’s children?
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The road to democracy
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Global vote around the world
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This year’s Child Rights Heroes
The annual programme includes the
magazine being published, children around the world learning about their
rights, how to vote, and who the year’s three Child Rights Heroes are. A Child
Jury, consisting of children from different countries, each of whom represents
children who have suffered some form of rights violation, plays a leadership
role in the programme. There is a preparation period, including training young
people to become child ambassadors and to become voting officers, followed by a
day on which children all around the world vote, by secret ballot, for one of
the three activists. There are currently 115 participating countries.
The Child Rights Hero with the
most votes is announced at a special Award Ceremony in Sweden. All three
activists are honoured for their work, and receive financial assistance for
their projects.
Part of the ceremony includes
groups of children, from different countries (including South Africa),
performing national songs and dances. There is a week-long programme, which
includes lots of rehearsals for the awards ceremony, but also the cultural exchange
that is afforded by the children hanging out together. The children get to
spend time together, and also to visit local schools and interact with the
local children.
This is, of course, an
international foundation dealing with serious issues affecting children. As much as we’d like to wish these realities
away, there are children, throughout the world, who are suffering all kinds of violations.
These include being forced to leave school and do exhausting manual labour in
sweatshops, young girls being forced to marry adult men, girls being sold into
prostitution by exploitative adults, children surviving by eating from rubbish
dumps, and school girls being forced to have sex with male teachers, in order
to pass their grades.
When children grow up in these
circumstances, there is often no-one they can turn to for help. There are thousands
of people, all over the world, who did not know that they had a right to speak
out, and that, as children, they need not have suffered the way they did. What
the WCP foundation does, with The Globe magazine as its primary means of
reaching children far and wide, is to teach children that they have rights, and
to encourage the children of the world to speak out. Every child, including
those living in the most remote villages, far from city lights and modern
amenities, far from the internet with all that it can teach, needs to get the
message that is enshrined in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the
Child.
At the 2015 ceremony, the Swedish
Prime Minister, Stefan Löfven, was named one of the Honorary Adult Friends and
Patrons of the WCP. In his acceptance speech, he said: “The World’s Children’s
Prize program is built on the Swedish traditions of equality for all, the
rights of the child, democracy and peace building, values so much needed in the
world today.”
To quote from the current Globe
magazine:
“The WCP patrons include five Nobel
Prize Laureates, and three global legends: Nelson Mandela, Aung San Suu Kyi
(from Burma), and Xanana Gusmão (from East Timor). H.M. Queen Silvia of Sweden
was the first patron. The patrons also include members of global leadership
group The Elders - Graça Machel and Desmond Tutu.”
The
World’s Children’s Prize year of activity ends with the annual awards ceremony,
an event led by the Child Jury, at Gripsholm Castle, in Mariefred, Sweden. All
three Child Rights Heroes are honoured for the work they do. Her Majesty, Queen
Silvia of Sweden, assists with presenting the prizes. Participating countries
are encouraged to hold their own closing ceremony, where they show the film of
the WCP ceremony and celebrate the rights of the child.
In 2016, it was reported that
more than 38 million children, in 113 countries, had participated in the WCP
programme since 2000. South Africa is
the country with the biggest number of participating children, as the WCP
programme forms part of the Grade 9 Life Orientation syllabus.
I took this pic of Gripsholm Castle, in Sweden, where the annual WCP Award Ceremony is held.
