Save the Children Youth

Calendar

If you would like to publish news of a youth participated or youth arranged event arranged with your
Save the Children organization, please contact international@press.no.

Past Events

4-9 August 2008 - Nordic Summer Festival

Nordic Summer Festival. Kärsögården, Sweden (Copyright: Save the Children Norway) This summer youths active in Save the Children from the Nordic countries spent a week together in idyllic Kärsögården by the coast in Stockholm, Sweden. The week was filled with different meetings, music, workshops, swimming, volleyball and discussions - all with a child rights focus. The festival is mainly for members of Save the Children youth in the Nordic countries, but participants from other partner countries are also invited to join the festival.

Each day started with a morning meeting in English for all the participants. The rest of the days were filled with different happenings and participants had an opportunity to choose between them. The week ended with outdoor concerts and different fun workshops.

For more information contact the summer festival group at summerfestival@press.no, or the Nordic coordinator for Save the Children Youth at tirill@press.no.

June 2008 - Youth in Honduras protest against poor working conditions for juvenilies

More than 130 children participated in a march to highlight the conditions of young workers together with representatives from the local government and different schools in the area.

Read the newsletter from Honduras here [Adobe PDF, 139 Kb]

16-18 May, 2008 - Climate Change Youth Perspectives on Security, Peace and Democracy

International Youth co-operation with YUNA -Tanzania

Is the Convention on the Rights of the Child well-known in other parts of the planet? How can we improve our educational efforts, headed for children and youth, in order to reach out with information about human rights in general and the Convention of the Rights of the Child in particular? These are some of the questions we are asking ourselves in a new co-operation between Save the Children Youth - Sweden (RBUF) and Youth of the Untied Nations Association of Tanzania (YUNA). The overall purpose is to build a strong youth based and led international partnership towards furthering human rights education amongst young people in relation to different development contexts. Our main objectives are to:

exchange and build our knowledge-base and capacity to work in the area of Human Rights Education,
widen our perspectives of Human Rights Education beyond our borders, and
come up with new methods to reach young people with Human Rights Education.

In May representatives from Save the Children Youth - Sweden and Youth of the United Nations Association of Tanzania will be attending a global youth conference on "Climate Change Youth Perspectives on Security, Peace and Democracy" in Stockholm/Sweden.

Are you interested in meeting youth from Tanzania trough the web or in person? Are you concerned with human rights education and would like join us in our work of developing a new method material? Do not hesitate to contact our project management team through:

Josephine Sundqvist
Project Management team
Save the Children Youth - Sweden
josephine.sundqvist@rbuf.se
+46-070-773 22 17
+255 0 783 374 648

10-15 May, 2008 - Workshop on youth involvement at the International Save the Children Alliance Members' Meeting

"Our vision is that Save the Children should not only be an organisation working for children but also an organisation
involving children."

Ten young activists from six different countries met in South Korea to discuss children and youth involvement in Save the Children. They began with a two day pre-meeting where they prepared for the International Save the Children Alliance Annual Members' Meeting, and discussed what kind of children and youth involvement they want to see in Save the Children, why it is important and how to increase levels of involvement.

Then, on the 13th, the youth participants gave a speach to over 100 delegates from across the Alliance, and also held a workshop. This was held in response to delegates' requests for inspiration and concrete ideas on how to increase children and youth involvement in their organisations. The workshop proved to be the most popular one, with participants from 14 of the 27 Member Countries. Participants listened to best practice examples of youth involvement in Sweden, Honduras and Norway and they also discussed youth involvement.

"I was highly energised by the way you organised the workshop. You gave us room to speak and you got your points across very clearly. You proved why we need youth involvement in decision making," said Arun Maira, president of Save the Children India (Bal Raksha Bharat) after the workshop.

The workshop sent out a clear message that Save the Children shouldn't be an organisation that limits itself to see children as receivers of aid. We must also see them as important stakeholders and resources in the work for children's rights.

3-11 May, 2008 - Seminar in Romania - Youth Participation and Involvement in the European Area

Youth participation and Involvement in the European Area is a multilateral project that fosters learning and interactive activities developed by actively involved young people from 4 European countries.

In the framework of the equal opportunities goal, the main themes of the project are European awareness and minorities. The preparation period will include an advance planning visit to Bucharest, where all the partners will put together the daily activities agenda for the seminar, based on the partnership agreements. All group leaders and organizers will agree on and finalize the academic agenda as well as the administrative details.

The activities of the Summer School will take place across 8 days: 3 days of workshops, 3 days for writing projects, 1 day for teambuilding activities based on multi-cultural dialogue within European Union, and 1 day for introductive activities and final evaluation of the activities. Workshops will be held by representatives of the partner governmental and non-governmental structures (The Ministry of Foreign Affaires, The National Council for Combating Discrimination, The European Commission Representation in Romania, The National Agency for Community Programs in the field of Education and Vocational Training).

The workshops will set the basis for the participants to elaborate projects in order to disseminate the information in their communities. The evaluating process will consist of submitting their own project proposals at a national level, to local decision-makers, and writing a report based on the authorities' response.

April 2008 - I'm not the future - I am now: Design competition for SC Youth in Finland

Save the Children Finland organised a design competition in the early spring of 2008. The aim of the competition was to get a new, fresh outlook for t-shirts for the organisation's youth members. Before the competition, SC Finland didn't have any products focusing on youth members only.

The competition ran between February and March, and was open to anyone under the age of 29. Save the Children Finland advertised the competition on their webpage, facebook and in their own interest groups. The competition also had its own webpage.

The theme of the competition was "I'm not the future - I am now", a variation on SC Youth's global theme, "We are not the future - we are now". Save the Children Finland thought the theme was clear and powerful, and that it conveyed the main aims and beliefs of the SC Youth organisation.

The competition was judged by a collection of professionals and Save the Children Youth members, including well-known Finnish designer Nina Jatuli. Judges chose the winning print for its beauty and originality, and for the fact that the picture and text both fit together to convey the overall theme.

The t-shirts are currently being printed, and will be on sale in late May. Save the Children Finland's active youths will be selling t-shirts at festivals and other events during the summer.

March 2008

17-year old Nelly van der Wilde, a Save the Children youth ambassador, has been chosen by the Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs to join him and his staff at the Human Rights Council in Geneva the first week of March. She is one of only two youths from the Netherlands chosen and will attend this for three days.

The youths will follow a programme focused on children's rights. They will attend the speech of Ban-ki Moon and the reception that is being held in his honour. They will have a personal meeting with the Dutch Minister and with human rights activists. They will also have the opportunity to talk with people from the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), from the permanent mission of Uruguay, and from the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and discuss children's rights with students at a school or university.

11 March 2008 - Youth participation at the International Save the Children Alliance Board Meeting

The Nordic Cooperation (Save the Children Youth in Sweden, Norway and Denmark) will participate at the Board Meeting of the International Save the Children Alliance. The aim is to present a mapping of youth involvement within Save the Children that was undertaken in 2007, and also to discuss how to increase the youth involvement within the International Save the Children Alliance.

If you have questions about this, please contact Frida Mörtlund, International Youth Coordinator for Save the Children youth Sweden, Norway and Denmark, international@press.no
Read more about the mapping

13 March 2008 - First ever ‘Global Children's Panel'

Save the Children UK launched it's first ever ‘Global Children's Panel', which brought together 14 children from across our country programmes. The members for the 2008 panel meeting are from: Bangladesh, Brazil, China, Liberia, Mongolia, South Africa, UK and Wales.

The Global Children's Panel met with Save the Children UK's Board of Trustees, CEO, and other senior staff to ensure we create a culture of good governance that recognises children as key stakeholders to whom we are accountable.

The panel will:

Offer its ideas on policy and decisions being discussed by the Board and which are important to children and young people. For example, ideas about the four current areas of focus for its programmes, our position about children's work or sexual exploitation of children etc.
Identify issues of importance to children and young people that they wish to discuss including Save the Children UK's performance, its approaches to work, or its choice of priorities or countries
Monitor and support Save the Children UK's efforts to increase the direct and meaningful participation of children as set out in the three year plan
Monitor how Save the Children demonstrates its accountability to children - e.g. listening to children and reporting back
Be a channel for wider accountability to children by Save the Children through formal reporting and dialogue with Trustees and senior managers and feedback the results of this dialogue to larger numbers of children

January 2008

Campaign on unaccompanied minor asylum seekers. Memorial service for the 600 children who disappeared from reception centers, Oslo, Norway (Copyright: Eirin Egge Ryan, )

Campaign on unaccompanied minor asylum seekers disappearing from reception centers.

Since year 2000, more than 600 children disappeared from reception centers, and due to PRESS-Save the Children Youth Norway's own survey, the police do not follow up cases with separated children with enough investigation.

To fight this serious breakage of children's rights, PRESS launched a new campaign on unaccompanied minor asylum seekers in January 2008. With several memorial services for the missing children in open city spaces, PRESS expressed their concern for the children and demanded action from responsible governments. People who passed were asked to sign postcards with a demand for action that were then sent to the Minister of Justice. PRESS also launched a website where people could learn about missing children and sign a petition.

The campaign has resulted in a lot of articles in the Norwegian media, and PRESS has managed to teach both the Norwegian people and the responsible governments about this problem based on new knowledge found by PRESS. PRESS will keep up the work with the campaign until the demands are fulfilled.