Mobilising for Childhood: BICE Campaign
This year, 2009, is a landmark year for anyone promoting the rights of the child. We are celebrating later this year, in November, the Twentieth Anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. In UN speak, a Convention is just about as strong a legal text one can envisage. It has greater authoritative and binding force than a Declaration. So, the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) is an important legal instrument at the international level, one that supports initiatives on behalf of children and young people.
Read MoreEdmund Rice International joins CARITAS campaign for Children living with HIV/AIDS
On March 9th CARITAS Internationalis launched its global campaign to raise awareness about children living with HIV/AIDS. Over 700 children under the age of two years of age die each day in the developing world because of lack of access to affordable and appropriate medicines. In collaboration with the Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance and the global CARITAS network the new campaign is targetting young people in schools between the ages of 11 and 16.
Children helping children is the focus of the campaign. By raising awareness of the issue of children dying because of lack of access to medicines, CARITAS and ERI hope to mobilise young people to join together in a global action. Schools and teachers are being invited to join the campaign through special lessons in class and through a global letter-writing campaign.
The letter-writing campaign will focus on national ministers of health. On Novemer 20th, 2009, the Twentieth Anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, governements will be presented with the letters written by the children and young people. The Governments will be invited to support a resolution at the United Nations calling for the provision of affordable and appropriate medicines for children living with HIV/AIDS.
In New York and in Geneva there will be a special exhibition of the collected letters from the children and young people. This exhibition is intended to raise awareness of the issue with Government delegations attending the celebrations to mark the Twentieth Anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
The ERI Geneva Team is currently making contact with education bodies around the world to alert them to the significance of the campaign and to seek their support for it. Edund Rice school networks will be involved in the campaign to the extent that this is possible at national and local levels.
Learn More about this CampaignPress Release
Br. Kevin Cawley of Edmund Rice International Joins GreenFaith’s National Fellowship Program Nationally Recognized Initiative to Train Religious Leaders for Environmental Leadership
Helping Street Children in Cochabamba, Bolivia
Throughout Latin America the problem of street children is particularly acute. Children and young people often find themselves on the street as street workers. They need to do this to support their families. Some who are on the streets are there because they have been rejected by their families. All are living in extreme poverty, have little access to schools or to health services, and many are at the mercy of those who would exploit them.
The statistics are astonishing. Latin America has more kids on the streets than any other part of the world. Rapid urbanisation is a major factor exacerbating the situation for street children.
In 1996, the Inter-American Development Bank and UNICEF estimated there were 40 million children living or working on the streets of Latin America--out of an estimated total population of 500 million.
The Christian Brothers in Cochabamba, Bolivia, have launched a new initiative for street children in that city. It is called the Comunidad Educativa Hermano Nicky O'Brien, in memory of a well-loved Irish Christian Brother who worked with the poor in Buenos Aires, Argentina. This is what the Comunidad Educativa Hermano Nicky O'Brien has to say about the situation of street children in Cochabamba:
We are immersed in a changing reality....Life in the street teaches us that many working boys and girls are obliged to change their toys for the goods they sell. This is a good and noble way to boost the family economy and to live according to custom and culture. Other children are forced into this situation through need without home support or interest. These children see things differently...They may turn their backs on the society that has rejected them. We seek to be with them and to help them to live more humanly and to belong to a more human community where they can play their part.
Comunidad Educativa Hermano Nicky O'Brien is working with other groups in the city of Cochabamba, including local Franciscans, to develop advocacy initiatives and to provide services for the children and the young people.