Working Together: A guidebook for training of trainers on mainstreaming children's participation

Child Workers in Asia has just published Working Together: A guidebook for training of trainers on mainstreaming children's participation. The Guidebook covers pre-training knowledge assessment, training methods, and evaluation and is designed to be augmented by the use of local experiences and interventions to facilitate organic reflection on practices of children's participation in order to improve those practices, and to develop more systematic conceptualisations and programmes to more fully mainstream children's participation.

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child lists a range of entitlements
guaranteed to children as rights. Among these rights are the right to express one’s
views on decisions in all matters concerning them and to have those views be taken
into account in accordance with one’s maturity, freedom of expression, freedom of
religion and conscience, and freedom of association and peaceful assembly. In addition
to these specific rights, participation is established as a guiding principle in the
pursuit and implementation of all rights of children. Thus, the Convention on the Rights
of the Child highlights the central role of children in efforts to claim and guarantee
their own rights.

The extent to which children are empowered to effectively claim the entire range of
their entitlements depends on the attitudes and practices of adults and the
opportunities and support they provide for children, on the growing capacity of
children to advocate for and effectively claim these entitlements, and on the strength
of collaborations and solidarity among children and others working to secure rights
and end exploitation.

Child Workers in Asia is committed to promoting further development and improvement of these capacities and practices to empower children to participate through promoting a culture of participatory and critical reflection for the organic development of principles and strategies, and identification and development of the positive values in the cultures, societies, and communities in which our members are based.

Working Together was developed in accordance with these principles following on the
recommendations of the Regional Workshop on Mainstreaming Children’s Participation in 2004 in which NGOs and children identified capacity and skills building as a requirement for further mainstreaming efforts. The result was a regional research project to document practices of children’s participation in interventions for working children in nine countries in South and Southeast Asia, and a programme of training for members of the network to create a pool of trainers on children’s participation within our network to facilitate mainstreaming within the network, and among its partners and the partners of its members.

The programme of training consisted of Training of Trainers workshops in South and
Southeast Asia in which participants shared and discussed experiences and lessons
learnt in practicing children’s participation, explored the meaning of meaningful
children’s participation, built skills, and planned future efforts. This process was
continued by participants holding trainings within their own organisations, among their
partners, and in their communities, in which they used a draft of the current guidebook
to help structure and enrich their trainings.

In every culture and society and in every understanding of justice are seeds from which
concepts and practices of participation can be grown. Working Together will be a useful tool for practitioners to structure, design, and augment their training on children’s participation in order to make their participation a more common and regular aspect of their lives and the lives of others.

Further information

• 2006 CRC Day of General Discussion on the right of the child to be heard
• CRIN's information page on child labour