Launch of the Karen language translation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child

On 25th November 2006, staff of the new Thai NGO Knowing Children traveled from
Bangkok to the Mae Hlar refugee camp on the Thai-Burma border to present the
first copies of a Karen language translation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) to children in a small orphanage.

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child provides all children,
everywhere with the same rights:

  • to provision of life, freedom, homes, identity, health and schooling,
  • to protection from being hurt in any way,
  • and to give their views on decisions made for their welfare.

It is vital that children should be able to read about their rights in their own language. But millions of children worldwide are not able to do this, because the Convention has not been translated into their mother tongue. Today Karen children are able to read it for the first time, thanks to a boy from this orphanage, who in 2004 asked Margaret Purvis, a visitor from the United States of America, if she could find a copy of the Convention in
Karen. She promised to do this and Knowing Children helped her to keep her promise, with the help of five Karen translators and one Karen artist, as well as financial contributions from Save the Children Sweden and Margaret herself, and an advance order for 2,000 copies from UNICEF office for Thailand.

Margaret was able to keep her promise to a parentless, stateless boy because this
project falls within Knowing Children’s vision that all policies and programmes for children should be founded on rights-based, scientific information. The pocket-sized translation includes an illustrated, children-friendly explanation, as well as texts in both Karen and English, a foreword by Jaap Doek, the Chair of the Committee on the Rights of the Child, who writes “Particular thanks go to the boy who first requested to be able to read about his own human rights. I hope that many such translations will soon make this information available in the mother tongues of children and adults from minority and ethnic groups.”

Further information

pdf: http://www.crin.org/docs/Knowing_Children_News_CRC_Karen_launch.pdf

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