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Achievements
Children's Council
At present, in many policies concerning children, there are no built-in
mechanisms or procedures by which representation of the views and opinion of the
child is ensured. Successful precedents for a children's parliament/council have
been set in many parts of the world like the UK, France, and Switzerland and in
less developed countries such as the deserts of India's Rajasthan and Morocco,
where children are allowed to express their views on issues that affect them. In
this regard, three organizing agencies including Hong Kong Committee on
Children's Rights, Against Child Abuse and
Hong Kong Committee for UNICEF,
together with a group of aspired children have been advocating for the
establishment of a Children's Council in Hong Kong.
The first Children's Council in Hong Kong was established in the year
2002/2003 as a pilot project sponsored by the Home Affairs Bureau. It was also
an extension of the UNCRC - Child Ambassadors' Scheme that was launched in 2000
to commemorate the 10th Anniversary of the United Nations Convention on the
Rights of the Child (UNCRC). It was jointly organized by the three agencies with
the sponsorship of Home Affairs Bureau. In the year 2002/2003 , three organizing
agencies together with the Child Ambassadors joint hands to make the first
Children's Council in Hong Kong come true.
We hope that the successful implementation of this project will help to
accelerate the establishment of a permanent Children's Council by demonstrating
to the government and the public that children in Hong Kong are capable of
having constructive and fruitful discussions as their counterparts all over the
world.
Objectives:
- To promote awareness of the UNCRC;
- To realize children's rights to participation;
- To provide children with an opportunity to develop an understanding of
the legislative process of Hong Kong;
- To enrich children's capabilities to participate in public issues and
decision-making on issues that affect them;
- To create a core group of children who are willing to actively support
the promotion of children's rights and the establishment of a permanent
Children's Council in Hong Kong.
Child Councilors:
The Children's Council consists of 70 seats. Child Councilors are recruited
annually through an open recruitment exercise. After initial screening and
interview by the organizing agencies and Child Councilors of the previous years,
70 children aged 11-17 are selected to become that year's batch of Child
Councilor.
Training Programmes:
The training programme was designed to help the Child Councilors to
familiarize with the UNCRC and prepare themselves for the Children's Council.
Training activities in the form of workshops and overnight camp are conducted to
raise participants' understanding towards the UNCRC and children's rights, and
the concept of participation, as well as team spirit building among them. Motion
topics and work plans are also formulated during the training.
Motions and Children's Council Meeting:
Each Child Councilor is given a 1-minute presentation opportunity to voice
out their concerns on a child-related topic during the training. Through debate,
discussion and Q&A, Child Councilors finally voted for the 3 motion topics of
their top concern to be put forward at that year's Children's Council Meeting.
The 70 Child Councilors are then divided into groups, and spent several months
to conduct research, survey and interviews, formulate arguments and prepare the
motion document to be tabled. The respective motions are presented and debated
in the Council Meeting usually held at the Legislative Council Building. A wide
range of child-related motions have been initiated by children themselves since
the first Children's Council Meeting took place in 2003. They included:
education policies, child abuse, school bullying, children in poverty, childhood
overweight, children's right to participation, unhealthy information to
children, children and youth at risk, sex education among children, children
left at home alone, new immigrant children's learning opportunities and
children's mental health problems.
The Children's Council project has received encouraging responses from the
Government, Legislative Councilors, schools, NGOs, media, individual guests in
the local community as well as overseas, and the most important of all, the
children themselves. The Children's Council project is co-organized by Hong Kong
Committee on Children's rights, Against Child Abuse and Hong Kong Committee for
UNICEF, and is now sponsored by the "Children𠏋 Rights Education Funding Scheme" of the
Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Bureau,
with the active support of
Kids' Dream whose
members are accumulated from the Children's Council projects.
Kids' Dream
You call us the future, but we are also the present. It has
become the slogan of an energetic children's group in Hong Kong – Kids' Dream,
who is eager to make children's voice heard in the community. With the
continuous discussion and preparation of a group of aspired children in 2004 and
2005, the Hong Kong Committee on Children's Rights has succeeded to get
operational resources and helped to set up Kids' Dream – Hong Kong's first
child-led organization focused on promoting the Convention on the Rights of the
Child with children's efforts in a sustainable way.
Kids' Dream was
formally established on 26 August 2006, and was witnessed by Mr. Wong Yan Lung,
Secretary for Justice, local and overseas NGOs, media agencies and the family
members and friends of the Kids' Dreamers at the Launching Ceremony. The
establishment of Kids' Dream has indeed written a new chapter for Hong Kong's
child rights history.
Kids' Dream organizes various activities in the community to raise public
awareness on the rights of the children. They also participate in media
interviews, forums and events organized by the government as well as NGOs, in a
hope that the general public can recognize the importance of children's rights
through different ways.
Today, HKCCR has been supporting Kids' Dream by sharing work space with Kids'
Dream members, and provides technical support in the areas of child rights,
planning and budgeting, networking, knowledge building and programme
implementation.
Kids' Dream is also supported by
Against Child Abuse, and is
sponsored and supported by
Save the Children.
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