Children’s Rights engagement events – Child safety, sports activities, cleaner seas campaign, rights awareness, being heard, LGBT flag design and young carer’s animation
Engagement methods- Celebration, Empowerment and Participation
In October 2023 the Argyll and Bute UNCRC Implementation Group applied for a grant from the Scottish Government, CORRA Foundation led, UNCRC Innovations Fund. The bid was successful, it gave us the resources to engage children and young people across Argyll and Bute in celebrations of their rights that would empower, engage and inform them in fun ways that were memorable and meaningful for them. From the very beginning and the development of the bid, coproduction took place and that was a theme throughout. We worked through schools, youth and community organisations, our Refugee and Resettlement team and others to shape a programme of events that ultimately engaged 2475 children and young people in across our towns and remote, rural and island places.
This model was highly successful and in 2024 – 5, children and young people showed us how they wanted to be empowered and included and what rights and causes they wanted to celebrate. Examples include a group of six primary schools who held a sports day to mark their right to play. Another primary school was concerned about cleaner seas and held a “Jobby-Free Sea” event for their community and reached out to decision makers in the Scottish Government to make themselves heard. Our Refugee and Resettlement team ran an activity week for children and young people at an outdoor centre.
Engagements that brought children and young people in contact with organisations that supported safety and families took place. A Child Safety Day was organised for multiple schools in Helensburgh and Lomond by Argyll and Bute Fire and Rescue Service, Police Scotland, British transport police, Scottish ambulance service/ first responders and Loch Lomond rangers. As well, Helensburgh and Lomond Carer’s Centre ran Children’s Right’s Awareness Raising sessions and a day trip for the young people supported through our Young Carers Service across Helensburgh & Lomond. Also, Argyll and Bute Citizens Advice Bureau (ABCAB) ran events for young people in high schools in each of the four main localities. Connecting with young people in a workshop environment, learning about rights and local resources. Issues like employability, cost of living, benefits etc. / connect to families in need of advice. Educate pupils about social support rights.
Inclusion and being heard were important in these activities and many of these events had the added advantage of creating materials that could support children’s human rights going forward and be shared even more widely. Our LGBTQ+ children and young people ran a day that included rights workshops in the morning and partying together in the afternoon. Part of this was a competition to design an Argyll and Bute LGBTQ+ flag. This has been created and shared and was recently used at Oban Pride.
Our young carers wanted to make a film about why rights were important to them and Media Coop were employed to work with them to create this. This has been shown widely to great acclaim and can be viewed here.
Argyll and Bute Young Carers: ‘Children’s Rights’ animation on Vimeo
An animator who worked with Aardman Studios also ran an animation workshop for our young carers and a launch event for the film was held and attended by some Council leaders.
As well groups of young people worked with graphic designers to produce graphic rights plans that could be placed in schools and other settings across Argyll and Bute. One of these, for early years families also involved staff and parents.
Importantly we wanted to work with children and young people to create things that could carry them forward in their rights journey. These have included an awards scheme for Council and partner staff celebrating how well they embed children’s rights into their work and engage with them. Children and young people will help to decide the categories of awards, decide the winners and award them in conjunction with Council leaders.
Material created for future work have included small libraries of children’s rights / inclusive and LGBTQ books being placed in several schools including Tobermory and Rothsay high schools. Pens provided with the books that will read aloud, allowing children and young people to share them with parents where English may not be a first language etc. In our activities we strove to ensure that children living in our remote, rural and island places; activities took place, for example on Mull, Bute, Jura and the small isles.
In all of this we worked to make children and young people aware of their rights in a joyous way that would leave them keen to know more and stay involved. We wanted to connect them with decision makers and ensure that they were a part of planning going forward and the next step is a Youth Conference.
