REACT Project - Childrens' Rights Resource Centre

Children today face unprecedented challenges affecting their health, well-being and development. From climate change to AI to pandemics, children’s futures are being impacted in ways they cannot anticipate or fully understand. More youth are engaging in activism than ever before: youth are leading social movements, bringing litigation against climate injustice and creating online viral campaigns to advocate for policy change. Yet, youth are seldom supported or taught how to engage in political activism and exercise their rights. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) recognizes children as active agents in their development (Article 6, CRC) with the right to know their rights (Articles 13, 42, CRC) and agency to contribute to decision-making affecting their everyday lives (Articles 5 and 12, CRC). Yet, schools and educators seldom teach children what it means to have rights, and engage in political activism for the protection and promotion of their rights.

In an era of global pushback against human rights, and a rising counter-science sentiment, young people need to be rights-literate with concrete tools to challenge authority, and speak out against rights’ violations. Moreover, with democratic institutions under attack and multilateralism in decline, it is increasingly important to find new ways to empower as global citizens to fight for democratic rights, and advance their own rights as future generations.

This project seeks to develop and pilot a youth rights activism module, creating a children’s rights resource centre that enables students to access information about their rights, and advocacy tools to engage in activism. By strengthening rights-literacy and equipping youth with tools to advocate for their rights, our aim is to activate more young people to engage with their rights and contribute meaningfully to the democratic process.

Our goal is to develop a 'minimum-viable' product in the form of a webplatform, that brings together existing resources online into a single integrated platform where youth can access:

1. A simple explanation of their rights, with links to child friendly versions of the United Nations Convention on the Child 2. Guides on youth-led activism and advocacy toolkits 3. Links to United Nations mechanisms (CRC Committee) and other children’s rights institutions in different regions of the world (ACERWC, Inter-American Court) (ACEWRC) 4. Links to regional programmes on children’s rights at the Council of Europe 5. Links to international non-profit organizations working on children’s rights issues  with explainers about what/how these different organizations work 6. An easy-to-use searchable database to locate children’s rights resources and materials from United Nations portals