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Bill Bell, 57, is Head of Child Protection at Save the Children UK, and has been on CRIN’s management team since 1996. Bill was a lecturer in Latin American Studies in Liverpool and London, before joining Save the Children in the late 1980s. Bill was interviewed for the 1000th edition of CRINMAIL. I came to Save the Children at the time the CRC was being adopted, when my own children were about seven years old. I felt that they had rights which needed to be upheld so it was about caring for them and also having the opportunity to help fulfil the rights of other children too. Part of what I’ve been trying to do at Save the Children over the last 18 or so years is trying to turn the CRC into a living tool. What does it mean? The Convention itself is technical language – a set of standards which needs to be relevant for children’s everyday lives. It has been about trying to work out what it means in practice for Save the Children. The major challenges for child rights over the years have been overcoming resistence to the notion of children as rights holders, raising awareness and understanding of the Convention – epecially among children themselves – and, of course, getting governments to take their obligations seriously. I was worried a couple of years ago that perhaps there was a move away from child rights values because of 9/11. There was some concern that child rights may get caught up in the response, when human rights principles were considered a luxury in the face of terrorism. But in fact children’s rights have not been much affected by the response. There is now a much greater understanding of child rights, and more use of rights based language and programmes. For example, participation has advanced hugely. Children are much more involved in decision making, and the image of children has moved much more towards the idea that they are active and competent participants in their own lives, and not just passive beings. There is much more visibility for the most vulnerable groups, such as child soldiers, and those involved in sexual exploitation. There was a period during the 90s when there was a resistance to the acceptance of child rights, and the movement from a development organisation to a rights-bsed one. It is about incorporating human rights into our work, and that means, for example, our own employment procedures, participation, advocacy and so forth. People struggle with the idea of entitlement rather than charity. But a problem in the past was that people polarised the difference between a needs-based approach and a rights-based approach. It can be difficult for people to understand rights, and saying that everything that you’ve done in the past is wrong does not help people to take a rights approach. Helping people to take ownership of rights must not denigrate what they have been doing up to that point. The best thing about my job has been seeing change happen, and seeing that change does happen even if it takes time. You can see this with, for example, participation and corporal punishment. Sometimes, it seems like you will never get there but it does happen eventually. The worst is the mirror of that. It can be frustrating that it does take time for change to happen, and you always want it to happen faster. My advice to other NGOs and activists? Keep at it! CRIN is important because it provides invaluable and up-to-date information about child rights. An idea from the beginning was that it was about the democratisation of information. It has needed to be flexible so that people have not been marginalised by the digital divide, although the aim has also been to use the latest technology. It has been a challenge to adapt the technological infrastructure. A challenge over the years has been getting members to contribute, and to be more involved in CRIN. Orignally, CRIN was less proactive, and simply provided the space in which people could give their suggestions and ideas. Now, the work is much more proactive and rather than waiting for requests, it is about identifying the sorts of things that are needed. If I had to sum up child rights in one word? Emancipation.