The World’s Children’s Prize for the Rights of the Child

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

-          How are the world’s children?

-          The road to democracy

-          Global vote around the world

-          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.