Submitted by Victor on
UNICEF is currently developing a 60-minute online training course to serve as a basic introduction to child rights for all of its staff. This course aims to be light-hearted and engaging, involving a significant amount of visual and video content.
UNICEF is looking for existing resources to draw on as they develop this course. If you know of any audio, video, graphic or text materials which you think would fit well with the outline below please email it to Marie Wernham b
Training outline:
1. What are child rights? [CRC, near-universal ratification and what this means / highlight how revolutionary it is, indivisible, inalienable and interdependent, not dependent on ‘responsibilities’ etc., monitoring by Committee on the Rights of the Child]
2. Why are child rights so important for UNICEF? [Mission, mandate, the Strategic Plan and Global Goals for Sustainable Development; could include personal testimonies of UNICEF staff from the early 1990s/’euphoria’ post-CRC ratification, and staff from different regions, highlighting that child rights are very much part of the DNA of the organisation]
3. What is the relationship between human rights and child rights? [including brief reference to UNICEF’s grounding in the UN Charter, Universal Declaration of Human Rights and to other human rights UNICEF works on – e.g. CEDAW and CRPD, but emphasising that this training course focuses specifically on child rights]
4. How are rights different to ‘needs’ and ‘well-being’?
5. What is the ‘child rights approach’? [including reference to human rights-based approach to programming, but focusing particularly on definition of a child rights approach in the UNICEF Child Rights Education Toolkit; emphasis on the importance of process, not just CRC articles in isolation; emphasis that the child rights approach goes beyond ‘programming’ to apply to all behaviour and initiatives, by adults and children]
6. Global examples of UNICEF / National Committees using a child rights approach to achieve implementation of child rights [including (e.g.) programming examples such as WASH, Health, Nutrition or Education etc., child participation in the CRC reporting process to the Committee - as an example of awareness-raising/advocacy/CRC monitoring, and Rights Respecting Schools – as an example of child rights education]
7. First hand testimony of how the child rights approach makes a difference (as opposed to ‘charity’ or ‘welfare’ approaches etc.)
8. How can I apply child rights and the child rights approach to my work? [examples of how this might apply to different types of roles in UNICEF, e.g. programmes (for example a WASH specialist), managers, communications, advocacy, fundraising, administrators etc.]
9. Answers to difficult questions / myth busting: e.g. “One important characteristic of human rights/child rights is that they are equal, indivisible and interdependent, and efforts should be made to realize all rights together. But what does this mean in reality, considering resource constraints and political contexts?”; “How can UNICEF effectively promote child rights in particular country contexts where decision-makers portray human rights as a ‘Western’ concept?”; “How can I talk about children’s rights without talking about their ‘corresponding responsibilities’ (which is very important in ‘my’ local cultural context)?”; addressing common myths that deter people engaging with child rights, such as 'child rights supersede adult rights', 'children become spoilt, self-entitled and uncontrollable' etc.
10. How can I find out more information? [links to existing resources on unicef.org and existing courses – like Integrating Child Rights in Development Cooperation (EU Toolkit), external courses etc.]
11. ‘Stop-and-check’ concept quizzes (or likewise) throughout.