[www.inewsguyana.com] – The Rights of the Child Commission (RCC) sponsored by UNICEF participated in an International Workshop – Adolescent and Youth Civic Participation held in Brasília, Brazil on the 10th -13th of December 2013.
The event was part of the self-managed activities of the Global Human Rights Forum. Approximately 130 participants from twelve (12) different countries attended the international workshop: adolescents, young people, policy makers, leaders of social movements, student leaders and other stakeholders developing programmes and policies aimed at ensuring the right to participation of young people.
The participation of young people has been recognised by international legal documents on specific instruments such as the Convention on the Rights of the Child (UN, 1989) and in many other human rights treaties relating to women’s rights, protection against discrimination, and the guarantee of civil and political rights.
Many countries including Guyana have incorporated the right to participation of young people on policy level within organisation or institutions and in varying degrees within their national legislations. Moreover, the UNICEF, UNFPA and UNHABITAT offices in Brazil, the Youth Coordination of the Government of the Federal District, and the National Youth Secretariat organised this International workshop as a space for debate, exchange of experiences, and ideas and knowledge for the sharing on civic participation of young people with the objectives to:
• Identify and systematize a framework for the participation of young people based on international norms, legislations and institutions of countries.
• Give visibility to public policies that ensure the participation of young people in decision-making fora regarding the realization of their rights.
• Share experiences of participatory processes led by young people.
• Create space for youth expression on innovative processes of participation, social mobilization and use of new information technologies and communication.
The first day of educational workshops for sharing information on concrete participation experiences and for collective knowledge production to ensure a systematization of the consensus obtained.
UNICEF Guyana selected RCC and Youth Media Guyana to share their methodology on child participation based on two areas:
Youth and adolescent participation in education policies, presented by Stefan Farier, the Prime Minister of the Assembly for Children’s Parliament (2011) for RCC. Mr. Farier explained through his presentation the selection process RCC took for bringing together children from eleven (11) educational administrative regions of Guyana to participate in “Children’s parliament.”
