The South and Central Asia Seminar on Celebrating Participation of Girls and Boys... Looking Ahead is organised by Save the Children Sweden Regional Programme for South and Central Asia in collaboration with Save the Children Canada Asia Regional Office. Save the Children believes in creating a world where children's voices are heard, respected and acted up on. It believes that given an enabling environment, children can express their opinions, take decisions in matters that affect their life and also can contribute to development. As rights based organisation it started working with/for children and promoting their right to participation in countries where it has been working. It is an organisation, which believed in children's participation at a time when no one recognised the issue and ignored it at large. According to Save the Children's rights based approach, children are considered as Rights Holders and therefore they are not just recipients of programmes that are designed for their development. They are active participants and have a say in prioritising the areas of work and its implementation. Save the Children's experience of working with children around the world shows that children are contributors of today and not just tomorrow. Especially in South and Central Asia Region the experiences and learning of children's participation is very rich and diverse in nature. There are many examples of children being involved at different stages of programme/project cycle, influencing the decisions of school, families, communities and local government bodies. They also have been active advocators in informing the policies and programmes of governments and organisations. Their participation ranging from GMC (Global Movement for Children), UNGASS (United Nations General Assembly Special Session), PRSPs (Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper) and Yokahama MTR (Mid Term Review) to recent United Nations Study on Violence Against Children provided valuable inputs for a much better planning and to inform the governments on required changes.
 Â
 Participation of children as a right has gained a momentum in the region as a result of the above efforts. Many organisations recognise the importance of involving children and started working towards this. Today this region has many examples of good practices and lessons learnt on children's participation. But they often get unnoticed, ignored due to either lack of financial or human implications in documentation or the size of the organisations. Save the Children intends to create a platform to celebrate the work on participation of children, to bring these experiences together and learn from them.
 Â
 This seminar is not just for looking at the years and the efforts gone by and celebration of those years, it aims to look ahead, identify the challenges and strategise for future.
 Â
 Registration deadline: 15 April 2006
Â
South and Central Asia Seminar on Celebrating Participation of Girls and Boys... Looking Ahead
Countries
Please note that these reports are hosted by CRIN as a resource for Child Rights campaigners, researchers and other interested parties. Unless otherwise stated, they are not the work of CRIN and their inclusion in our database does not necessarily signify endorsement or agreement with their content by CRIN.