The winners of the project.
SABA--The film ‘Rights to Healthy Food’ by Quinten van Drunen, Jenee Matthew, Elisey Richardson, and Ruegenne Matthew was announced winner of the Children’s Rights Film Festival (CRFF) in Saba on Saturday, October 10.
Since early this year, children of Sacred Heart School and Saba Comprehensive School have been participating in the UNICEF CRFF. Through this project, children have learned about their rights and have been actively involved in children’s rights by starring in and making their own short scripted film about a child’s rights that they feel strongly about, it was stated in a press release.
The process started with a lesson on children’s rights and a drawing contest about the children’s favourite right. The winner of the drawing contest was 13-year-old Keon Peterson, who is in Form 1 at Saba Comprehensive School, the second runner up was
9-year-old Quinten van Drunen, a Grade 4 pupil of Sacred Heart School, and the third runner up was 11-year-old Jayquan Charles, a Grade 6 pupil of Sacred Heart Primary School.
Keon, Quinten, and Jayquan’s drawings formed the basis of the scripts for the short films featured at the local premiere on Saturday. The children and their peers were supported to create and produce the films by their Film Coach Adam Watkins from Chizzilala Productions. Implementation of CRFF in Saba was supported by Child Focus Foundation and local project coordinator Dahlia Hassell.
Children in the other five Dutch Caribbean islands have also been participating in the CRFF. The winning film from Saba will proceed to the regional CRFF finale to compete with winning films from the other islands. Due to the ongoing coronavirus crisis, the finale will take place virtually on Saturday, November 21.
CRFF is a UNICEF Netherlands project funded by the Dutch Ministry of Interior and Kingdom Relations. The focus of the project is to raise awareness about children’s rights in a creative and playful manner. Film-making is a perfect tool to reach this objective. The project is a part of the broader children’s rights approach of UNICEF Netherlands and the governments of the Dutch Caribbean to support professionals, parents and children to further improve the children’s rights situation in the Caribbean part of the Netherlands.
Child Rights Coordinator of the Public Entity of Saba Alisia Wilson said, “the rights of the child recognise that all children have the right to family care, love, to be treated with dignity and fairness, to be protected, to develop to their full potential and to participate in decisions that impact their lives. In this case this film festival is a great opportunity where the children can express themselves”.
Though Hassell was unable to be present at the event, she reiterated, “these forms of art expression like acting in films or music or drawing are crucial for a child’s development, especially when words do not suffice. It allows them to explore their feelings to explain topics such as freedom of thought and religion.”
Why children’s rights? Every child and young person have rights, no matter who they are or where they live. By signing the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the world made a promise to children that they will do everything in their power to protect and promote children’s rights to survive and thrive, to learn and grow, to make their voices heard and to reach their full potential.
When learning about children’s rights, children learn that they need to respect the rights of other children and adults by not bullying one another, but also by, for example, listening to their parents or teachers. Learning about child rights empowers children and adults to bring about change in their immediate environment and the world at large to ensure that the rights of all children are fully realized, it was stated in the release.
