“Article 42: You have the right to know your rights! Adults should know about these rights and help you learn about them, too.”
Save the Children Sweden believes that supporting civil society to promote and monitor child rights leads to improvements in the lives of children and the building of more sustainable democratic societiaes.
We stress that our programmes should be based on the general principles of human rights: indivisibility, accountability, universality, and participation. We emphasize the right to child participation – as a human right – the right to non-discrimination, and state accountability.
Save the Children Sweden believes the best way to achieve long-lasting changes for children is to strengthen civil society actors as they have knowledge about the local situation, political context, culture and tradition and will remain in the long-term national actors in the field. The goal of our support to civil society partners is building their competence as change-agents within their society capable of carrying out advocacy work, constituency building, and implementing support actions that target children directly. We also influence duty-bearers to fulfil, respect and protect the rights of children, and play a role in connecting child rights organisations at national and international levels and providing support to child rights networks for joint monitoring, reporting and advocacy activities.
Over the years, Save the Children Sweden has established and maintained close relationships with a wide range of civil society actors in the region. Building on these partnerships, we have launched a new project entitled “A Civil Society for Child Rights” in 2008. The project, funded by SIDA, spans over 3.5 years and will support and strengthen the capacity of existing civil society networks and NGOs in 17 countries of the MENA region. More specifically, the project aims to support civil society organisations and children in their role as advocates and active development partners for the rights of the child. The project will work along four main components: analysis and reporting, coordination, advocacy, as well as CRC and child rights programming mainstreaming. Building on a successful pilot project implemented in 2007, the project integrates Animate It – a method that uses animation to create spaces for children to express their opinions, raise awareness and advocate for their rights combining writing, artwork, animation and sound.
http://www.crcmena.org/