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Project REACT

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The project

The Child Law and Health Law Department started the REACT project after piloting a Children’s Rights module at the International School Wassenaar. Although the lessons were successful, the team noticed that information about children’s rights and activism is scattered across many websites, difficult to search and often too simplified for teenagers.

This is where our product comes in. A website called CRRC, the Children’s Rights Resource Centre. It is one clear platform where teenagers aged 13 to 17, as well as older users, can learn about their rights and activism through guides, advocacy tools and explainers. It also has a search function, making it easy to navigate the site and access all the documents.

The platform supports schools, such as through the lessons given by our client, and encourages youth engagement. In addition, it can be used by everyone as a source of information about children’s rights.

The customer

The client for this project is Leiden Law School’s Child Law and Health Law Department. The client team comprises the following persons:

  • Sheila Varadan, Assistant Professor of Children’s Rights (also the team’s contact person).
  • Ton Liefaard, Full Professor of Children’s Rights and Head of the Department of Child Law and Health Law.
  • Rehana Dole, Programme Manager UNICEF Chair in Children’s Rights at Leiden University.

Communication with the client was excellent throughout the project. We could not have wished for anything better. Meetings were first held on a weekly basis, then adjusted to a biweekly schedule. Additionally, communication via email was efficient. Responses from both parties were typically provided within two days.

The team

The roles for the project were divided as follows: Ilse de Bruijn: Scrum Master and Meeting Leader Joeke Meijer: Initially Product OwnerRoxana-Laura Micu:,Second Product Owner and Meeting Leader when necessary Yihui Peng: Developer Tony Tian: Developer Xiaosai Li: Developer, responsible for meeting notes

  • We switched roles from product owner because Joeke had already done a lot of programming for our project and we wanted to divide the tasks more evenly within the team.

At the beginning of every sprint, we divided the work among the team members. First, we created two teams: one for the frontend and one for the backend. Later on, we helped each other wherever programming support was needed.

One challenge we faced was getting permission from other organizations to use their information on our website. Because of this, we could not do as much as we wanted in the beginning. Receiving permission took us more time than expected. However, once we received permission, we immediately started working with the information. Since we had already prepared as much as possible, the rest of the project went smoothly and without time pressure. Another challenge was ensuring an even contribution from all team members in terms of commits, because the backend team did a lot of programming at the beginning. However, once we started working more on the frontend, this issue was solved as well.

We are very proud that we created a place where children, as well as other people, can find information about a very important topic: children’s rights. Instead of the information being scattered all over the internet, it is now brought together in one accessible place.

The technologies

Technical stack:

  • Frontend: Next.js (React) and Ant Design Components/Icons
  • Backend & Infrastructure: Appwrite, Meilisearch and Python (for custom Appwrite Functions)
  • CI/CD pipeline: Github Actions with automated Jest (frontend) and Pytest (backend) testing to ensure 80%+ code average.
  • Our site runs on Appwrite (backend: Appwrite, frontend: Appwrite Sites)