Team Statia during the first digital conference of the Kingdom Task Force for Children’s Rights.
ST. EUSTATIUS--Young professionals of the countries and the public entities of the Kingdom of the Netherlands can look back on a successful digital edition of the annually organised conference in which monitoring, evaluation and the social impact of COVID-19 on children and the youth were the two main themes.
The Kingdom Task Force for Children’s Rights was organised by St. Eustatius in collaboration with the Ministry of Home Affairs and Kingdom Relations.
During this anniversary conference, the task force looked back at the past five years. It also looked ahead to how it can create a framework in the near future that stimulates safe and healthy upbringing in a promising environment for all children and young people.
The conference consisted of a very diverse programme that allowed professionals from all countries and public entities of the Kingdom to have interactive discussions with each other around the table. It had a hybrid character in the sense that the task force members and youth professionals from the Kingdom were digitally present in the studio from which the livestream was recorded.
This diversity allowed for beautiful and interesting table conversations. The first day of the conference focused on monitoring and evaluation.
Ton Liefaard, a prominent professor on children’s rights, explained how monitoring and evaluation contribute not only to accountability, but also to working more efficiently. Aboubacry Tall, a children’s rights professional who works for the United Nations Children’s Fund UNICEF in Senegal, shared his knowledge on “Rights-based and equity-focused monitoring”.
The second day focused on the social impact of COVID-19 on children and the youth. Micha de Winter, emeritus professor of social education issues, took part in the table discussions and shared results of interesting research that he conducted on the social impact of COVID-19 on children.
Sharing knowledge, creating connections and intercountry collaboration remain important even in these difficult times. The challenges posed by, for example, COVID-19 require the countries and public entities of the Kingdom to join forces. This is essential to be able to jointly tackle the issues surrounding children’s rights. Consequently, children in the Kingdom can retain the prospect of a healthy and safe future in which the voice of the child is very important.
The programme also considered the UNICEF initiative #mynewworld, in which children ages 13-18 were asked to share their ideas about what their ideal world would look like after this pandemic. The children welcomed this initiative with open arms, as they had the opportunity to have their voices heard. The idea was to convert their suggestions into actual implementations.
The task force expressed its intention to consider the voice and vision of children more in the future.
Visit www.ourchildrenourfuture.org for more information.
