Discovering each other - Resource Centre · Discovering each other Save the Children meet with school children in Cote d’Ivoire to talk about education A report for children Assouba,

Discovering each other

Save the Children meet with school children in Cote d’Ivoire to talk about education

A report for children

Assouba, 25 September 2008

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Save the Children fights for children’s rights. We deliver immediate and lasting improvements to children’s lives worldwide. Save the Children works for:

• a world which respects and values each child

• a world which listens to children and learns

• a world where all children have hope and opportunity © 2008 Save the Children This publication is protected by copyright. It may be reproduced by any method without fee or prior permission for teaching purposes, but not for resale. For use in any other circumstances, prior written permission must be obtained from the publisher.

Written by: Neha Bhandari Reviewed by: Monica Lindvall, Tina Hyder Contributors: Jean Baptiste Sadiki, Eva Geidenmark, Birgitta Ling Production: Neha Bhandari Photo credits: Eeva Johansson, Samual Mwangi, Monica Lindvall

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Dear young friends

It was a wonderful opportunity for Save the Children to

visit the school Assouba 1 and 2 in Côte d’Ivoire on 25

September 2008. We would like to thank the school and

its students for such a warm welcome.

Thirty five of us visited. All of us are Save the Children

staff from different parts of the world. We came to learn

how children take part in the school, in the classrooms,

in the day to day running of the school, in the children’s

club and in the School Management Committee.

We had the chance to meet many children and learn

about your experiences at school. You asked us many

questions and were curious to learn more about our visit

and Save the Children’s work. We thought you might

want to remember and discuss all the different things

that we talked about. So we have written this book.

In the book , you will be able to read why we came to

your school, what we did there and what we are going to

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do because of what we learnt from you. You will be able to find answers to the following questions:

1. Who is Save the Children? What does it do?

2. What is Save the Children doing in Côte d’Ivoire?

3. Why did Save the Children visit the school?

4. What did Save the Children do during the school visit?

5. How will Save the Children make sure they make use of what they learnt at the school?

6. How can I get more information about what is written in this document?

Save the Children staff who visited Côte d’Ivoire from different parts of the world, have written this document for you in

Assouba 1 and 2 in Côte d’Ivoire. We hope it will also be interesting for children in other parts of the world to read about

Save the Children’s work in Côte d’Ivoire.

We were delighted to visit your school and meet you. It was a wonderful experience for us and we have brought back many

good memories. A big thank you to you.

Save the Children

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WHO IS SAVE THE CHILDREN? WHAT DOES IT DO?

Save the Children is an organisation that works in more than 120 countries around the world. It works to make sure all children have

a happy, healthy and safe childhood. Save the Children listens to children, involves children and makes sure that their views are

heard. For Save the Children it is important that all children get their rights such as their right to food, shelter, health care, education

and freedom from violence, abuse and exploitation.

Save the Children works in 33 countries in Africa. Côte d’Ivoire is one of those countries.

WHAT IS SAVE THE CHILDREN DOING IN CÔTE D’IVOIRE?

Save the Children began working in Côte d’Ivoire in 1996. We work to make sure children in Côte d’Ivoire are safe and protected.

From 2006, we began working hard to make sure more than 270,000 children in Côte d’Ivoire have a proper education by 2010. We

want children to go to a safe and comfortable school. Ensuring children have a good education, especially in countries where there is

conflict, is part of Save the Children’s special work called “Rewrite the Future”.

As part of Rewrite the Future, Save the Children is repairing schools. We make sure schools have important materials, like

blackboards, table, chairs, games and books, to help children study. Save the Children is also working with teachers to show them

that they can teach without punishing students. We are working with the government as well to make education better for children in

Côte d’Ivoire. We train parents, teachers and children on children’s rights and child participation (this word is explained ahead) in the

school. The idea is to make schools safe places for children.

There are more than 50,000 children in the 143 schools that Save the Children has repaired in Côte d'Ivoire,. Children learn about

their rights, how to keep themselves safe and how they can protect their friends from violence. They have also learnt that they have

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the right to participation. So in all schools there are children's clubs.

Children decide who should be a member of the club, to speak on

their behalf. The girls and boys who are members of the club then

get together and discuss what they want to do to make their

schools even better. After that, they go back to their class-mates

and tell them what has been decided in the clubs.

WHY DID SAVE THE CHILDREN VISIT THE SCHOOL?

Thirty five Save the Children staff from 13 countries visited the school at Assouba. These countries are Côte d’Ivoire, Denmark,

England, Finland, Kenya, Lebanon, Liberia, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Sweden, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

These grown-ups came to Côte d’Ivoire for a meeting called “Capacity building workshop facilitating Participation of Boys and Girls

from a Rights-Based Approach in Education for Save the Children in Africa and Middle East and North Africa.” This meeting was

held in Grand Bassam from 23 to 27 September 2008.

The idea of the meeting was to get together Save the Children staff to discuss and understand how best to promote a rights based

approach to education.

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These rights are listed in a document called the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. This is also called the CRC.

Different sections in the CRC, tell us about various rights children have. These sections can also be called, Articles.

Some of the articles are as follows:

Article 2 says all children should get all the rights.

Article 3 says all adults should do what is best for you.

Article 4 says that the government has a responsibility to make sure your rights are protected.

Article 6 says that all children have the right to survival and development.

Article 12 says girls and boys have the right to an opinion, and for it to be listened to and taken seriously.

Article 13 says you have the right to find out things and share what you think with others.

Article 17 says you have the right to information that you can understand.

Article 28 says you have the right to a good quality education.

Article 29 says your education should help you use and develop your talents and abilities.

WHAT IS THE MEANING OF ‘RIGHTS-BASED APPROACH IN EDUCATION’?

Let’s first understand what “Rights” are.

Rights are things every child should have or be able to do. All girls and boys have the same rights. Almost every country has

agreed to these rights. All the rights are connected to each other, and all are equally important. All children have the right to

education, right to health, right to a violence free life, right to be treated equally no matter what their background is, and so on.

Can you think of other rights that all children have? You can write it here.

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You will find a complete list of CRC articles listed at the end of the book. Can you find the article which says all children have the

right to know their rights1?

Article 3 and Article 26 say that all children have all the rights.

Article 4 says that adults including those in the government should always consider what is best for the child, when making a

decision concerning the child.

Article 11 says that all children should be able to study safely and properly and that their education should help them respect African

culture.

Article 31 says that all children have duties and responsibilities along with their rights.

CHILDREN HAVE RIGHTS AND RESPONSIBILITIES! For example, if children have a right to be educated, then they have the

responsibility to learn as much as their capabilities allow and, where possible, share their knowledge and experience with

others. Can you think of other responsibilities that children have?

1 Article 42 says You have the right to know your rights! Adults should know about these rights and help you learn about them, too.

Just like the CRC, there is another document called the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child. You can also call it

ACRWC. This is also an important document that tells us about rights of children in Africa. It is similar to the CRC. Here are some

of the articles in the ACRWC:

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• All children have very important things to say on issues that affect their

lives. They all have ability to take actions, alone or together with a group of

friends to make positive changes in their lives and those of their

communities. We can call this children’s right to participate.

• We also believe that all rights apply to all children without exception. Nobody should be discriminated or treated badly because of

their colour, identity, ethnicity, religion, sex, language, HIV/AIDS, disability or type of family they come from, whether poor or rich.

We call this children’s right to non-discrimination.

• The government is responsible to help children get their rights.

• Your best interest is most important. All adults should do what is best for you. When adults make decisions, they should think

about how their decisions will affect children.

• All children have the right to life. All children should survive and develop healthily.

Now that you understand what are rights,

let’s try to understand what we mean by

rights-based approach.

The rights-based approach is a way or method

of working for Save the Children and other

organisations, to make sure all children get

their rights. Following a rights-based approach

in our work, means we consider the following

when working for fulfilling children’s rights:

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Following the rights-based approach also means that all

children should be protected from harm. It also means we

understand that to achieve children’s right in one area, we

may need to work on other areas too. We need to work on

underlying reasons that create problems in children getting

their rights. We can also call this working on root causes.

Following these principles can be called the rights based

approach of working so that we can fulfill children’s rights.

However, we need to make sure all of us that work for Save

the Children are able to understand the rights based

approach well and that we are able to follow it in all that we

do.

So following the rights based approach in education, can

mean we work to achieve the following things–

• Children have a say in their schools and are able to take

positive actions in their schools to make their school and

learning better. They are able to take part in their

classrooms, in the day to day running of the school and

also the School Management Committee.

• All children can go to a proper and safe school, no matter

who they are, where they come from and what they do.

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• Children are not discriminated due to their disabilities, class, colour, language they speak and so on.

• The government is accountable to provide schooling to all children.

• Families are supported so that children go to school.

• Children can safely and easily reach the school.

• The schools are safe places for children to study.

In order to understand the rights-based approach in education, Save the Children felt it was important for the staff to visit the school

in Assouba 1 and 2 and meet with students and teachers. We knew we would be able to learn from children themselves about

education and how it can be made better.

WHAT DID SAVE THE CHILDREN DO DURING THE SCHOOL VISIT?

Save the Children celebrated the second anniversary of

Rewrite the Future in Côte d’Ivoire at the school at

Assouba. The Village Chief welcomed Save the

Children’s staff to the school. Other grown-ups such as

teachers and a school inspector were also there. A few

students welcomed Save the Children into the school and

Save the Children distributed school kits in the school.

Media people were also invited to the school. They

interviewed some grown-ups and wrote about the event in

their newspapers.

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After this Save the Children staff were divided into two groups. The first group held a meeting with school children. The other group

held a meeting with teachers, School Management Committee and school club members.

GROUP 1 – THE SPIDER-NET TALK:

MEETING WITH THE SCHOOL

CHILDREN

Six grown-ups from Save the Children

and six students from the school talked

about children’s view of their school and

how they are involved in the school’s day

to day activities. Other Save the

Children staff listened to the discussions.

The grown-ups and the children asked

each other many questions. The children

were most curious to understand Save

the Children’s work, about the grown-ups

own childhood and about schools in

different countries.

Sitting in a circle, the discussion began

with one person passing the ball of

thread to another person, asking a question, while holding on to one end of the thread. With the end of the answer, that person

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passed on the ball to another person, posing another question. This way a

web or a net of questions and answers formed between the children and the

grown-ups. We can call this ‘the spider-net exercise’. Here you can read

about some of the discussions that took place.

Questions from grown-ups to children

“Which is the one thing that you see improving in your school?” “We have regular meetings in our school to discuss school maintenance.” “What can you do to help drop out children to come back to school?” “I will ask my teacher to meet their parents to ask them to send their child to school.” “Why did you become a member of school club?” “To help other children.” “What activities do you implement in the school club?” “We ask parents to give food to their child. If the child is hungry how will he or she take part in school activities?” “What is the importance of the school club?” “It makes the school beautiful and neat.” “What do you plan to do for your community?” “I would like to help those people who haven’t gone to school.” “If you could make one wish to change one thing about your school, what would that be?”

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“I want teachers to stop beating children.” “What message do you have for other children?” “Come to school, school is the key to a better life.” Questions from children to grown-ups “What do you do for street children?” “We find safe places for them to live and send them to school.” “Why are children at the centre of your work?” “Children are people NOW and in the future.” “How do you behave towards your own children?” “Since I’m aware of child participation, we try to involve children in all family decision making.” “Are schools uniform compulsory in schools in your country?” “Since there has been internal conflict in the country for long, many parents cannot afford to have school uniforms for their children. So we have removed that condition from many schools.”

WHAT CHILDREN THOUGHT OF THE EXERCISE

The children felt that they were able to ask and answer many questions during the exercise. It helped them to express themselves.

They learned about Save the Children’s work in other countries and experiences of people living in other parts of the world.

“This was a platform for us to express what we experience with our teachers.”

- A girl, part of this exercise.

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GROUP 2 - MEETING WITH THE TEACHERS, SCHOOL MANAGEMENT

COMMITEE AND SCHOOL CLUB MEMBERS

A group of Save the Children staff also met with school club members (4 girls

and 5 boys), teachers and School Management Committee members. These

are some of the discussions that took place between them:

Questions from grown-ups to the school club members “How do you select leaders of your club?” “By election we select the leaders.”

“What projects are you (children’s clubs) working on, what subjects, what kind of activities?” “We clean the school and classrooms, decorate the school.”

“Do you have other activities?” “We inform on children’s’ rights.”

“Can you tell us what the children’s rights are? “Right to school, right to life, right to health, right to play.” “In school and village, do you talk to parents and community members of these rights?” “Yes, we talk to our mother, sisters and friends.”

“Now that you come to school and some of your friends are not coming – What do you do or would you do to make those of your friends come to school who are not yet in school?” “They must return to school. Save the Children will provide them with school kits. It works.”

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“In what ways do the teachers try to discipline you?” “Cleaning teachers house yard; teachers asks to clean the rice; stay at class until mid-day; makes us do push-ups.” Questions from children to grown-ups How do you deal with children in Sierra Leone? Are there abandoned children in Liberia? Do schools charge a fee in Kenya? Is it mandatory to have uniforms in Zimbabwe? Can you tell if children’s rights are respected in Sudan?

Discussion with teachers and members of the

School Management Committee

Questions from Save the Children to the School Management Committee (SMC) “What is the composition of SMC? How many members are there?” “The SMC has 15 members including children. The village chief is head of the SMC.” “How do you manage to work with the village chief as the head of SMC? “The village chief might be busy sometimes to attend the meetings, but the vice president is always present and organizing things. SMC has been founded by villagers, although the chief has the overall responsibility. We do refer to the chief when important decisions are required to be made. Within the SMC, we also have a monitoring committee to see that we are doing our work properly.”

“Is there any advantage and disadvantage of children’s participation in the Committee?”

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“The advantage is that if children are aware they need to participate in their own education, they also take responsibility of their own learning. There isn’t any disadvantage of having children as members of the SMC. But although children are able to participate in discussions at school, in the families things are different. We need to go to families and discuss the importance of children’s participation.” Questions from SMC to Save the Children Is there a high drop out rate in Lebanon and Sudan, what is the scenario in other countries? Do teachers need to teach many subjects?

HOW WILL SAVE THE CHILDREN MAKE SURE THEY MAKE USE OF WHAT THEY LEARNT AT THE SCHOOL?

In this school visit, we learnt that we need to work harder

with schools, teachers and the SMC on understanding

children’s right to participate. We have to work with families

too to make them realise why children’s participation in

important. We also have to work with children themselves,

support them in children’s clubs and in other ways, to help

them participate in their school, homes and communities.

Above all, we learnt that Save the Children has to work

upon itself to understand how to help children participate in

better ways.

Many of the children raised the issue of punishments by

teachers in the school. This means that we also have to

work harder with the teachers on finding different ways of

disciplining children without violence, so that children are

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not harmed in any way. We will continue to take up this issue with the school.

Save the Children staff will take all these lessons back to their countries, and include this in their work there. We have also written a

bigger report about our meeting and visit, which we will share with Save the Children offices around the world.

HOW CAN I GET MORE INFORMATION ABOUT WHAT IS WRITTEN IN THIS DOCUMENT?

If you are a student at the school in Assouba 1 and 2, you should contact Tantie Sita at your local Save the Children office

to help you with more information.

If you are a child or young person somewhere else in the world, you should also ask your local Save the Children office for

more details should you need any. In case you can use the internet, go to the following websites for more information.

www.savethechildren.net

www.rb.se/eng

www.crin.org

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UNITED NATIONS CONVENTION ON THE RIGHTS OF THE CHILD - SIMPLIFIED

Article 1 Everyone under 18 has all these rights.

Article 2 You have the right to protection against discrimination. This means that nobody can treat you badly because

of your colour, sex or religion, if you speak another language, have a disability, or are rich or poor.

Article 3 All adults should always do what is best for you.

Article 4 You have the right to have your rights made a reality by the government.

Article 5 You have the right to be given guidance by your parents and family.

Article 6 You have the right to life.

Article 7 You have the right to have a name and a nationality.

Article 8 You have the right to an identity.

Article 9 You have the right to live with your parents, unless it is bad for you.

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Article 10 If you and your parents are living in separate countries, you have the right to get back together and live in

the same place.

Article 11 You should not be kidnapped.

Article 12 You have the right to an opinion and for it to be listened to and taken seriously.

Article 13 You have the right to find out things and say what you think, through making art, speaking and writing,

unless it breaks the rights of others.

Article 14 You have the right to think what you like and be whatever religion you want to be, with your parents’

guidance.

Article 15 You have the right to be with friends and join or set up clubs, unless this breaks the rights of others.

Article 16 You have the right to a private life. For instance, you can keep a diary that other people are not allowed to

see.

Article 17 You have the right to collect information from the media – radios, newspapers, television, etc – from all

around the world. You should also be protected from information that could harm you.

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Article 18 You have the right to be brought up by your parents, if possible.

Article 19 You have the right to be protected from being hurt or badly treated.

Article 20 You have the right to special protection and help if you can’t live with your parents.

Article 21 You have the right to have the best care for you if you are adopted or fostered or living in care.

Article 22 You have the right to special protection and help if you are a refugee. A refugee is someone who has had to

leave their country because it is not safe for them to live there.

Article 23 If you are disabled, either mentally or physically, you have the right to special care and education to help you

develop and lead a full life.

Article 24 You have a right to the best health possible and to medical care and to information that will help you to stay

well.

Article 25 You have the right to have your living arrangements checked regularly if you have to be looked after away

from home.

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Article 26 You have the right to help from the government if you are poor or in need.

Article 27 You have the right to a good enough standard of living. This means you should have food, clothes and a

place to live.

Article 28 You have the right to education.

Article 29 You have the right to education which tries to develop your personality and abilities as much as possible and

encourages you to respect other people’s rights and values and to respect the environment.

Article 30 If you come from a minority group, because of your race, religion or language, you have the right to enjoy

your own culture, practice your own religion, and use your own language.

Article 31 You have the right to play and relax by doing things like sports, music and drama.

Article 32 You have the right to protection from work that is bad for your health or education.

Article 33 You have the right to be protected from dangerous drugs.

Article 34 You have the right to be protected from sexual abuse.

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Article 35 No-one is allowed to kidnap you or sell you.

Article 36 You have the right to protection from of any other kind of exploitation.

Article 37 You have the right not to be punished in a cruel or hurtful way.

Article 38 You have a right to protection in times of war. If you are under 15, you should never have to be in an army

or take part in a battle.

Article 39 You have the right to help if you have been hurt, neglected, or badly treated.

Article 40 You have the right to help in defending yourself if you are accused of breaking the law.

Article 41 You have the right to any rights in laws in your country or internationally that give you better rights than

these.

Article 42 All adults and children should know about this convention. You have a right to learn about your rights and

adults should learn about them too.