Raising awareness of the rights of children with special needs
My name is Synne and I'm a third- year student
at Molde University College, studying to be a social educator. I'm one of the
participants in this NOREC project, which aims to improve life quality of
children with special needs, through practice implementation of UN human
rights. The project is based on exchange of staff and students from Norway and
Tanzania. The participants will gather information, work together and learn
about the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and UN Convention on the
Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). The CRC nor the CRPD are not well
enough known in the field practices, either in Norway or Tanzania, and practices
that are not fully in line with the rights therefore often occurs. However, in
this project we have learnt about the rights and we seek to collaborate with
those who work with children, so that together we can find ways to meet the
children's rights.
In January me and the rest of the Norwegian group went to Tanzania for a 3-month exchange. My wish before I left for this participation was to contribute to more awareness of the human rights and also making people more aware of working with children with special needs, in accordance with CRPD and article 8 about awareness- raising.
We noticed quite early on that the students on secondary school had little free time, which is a right in the Human Rights Convention. Their timetable was full from morning to evening, with little breaks between classes. We therefore wanted to have a workshop together with the teachers about this. We made a poster about article 24 in the human rights convention, and we also presented behavioristic perspective on learning. In this workshop we planned for the teachers to spend a few minutes in groups discussing what they think free time is, and later made them share their thoughts. This gave a good group discussion, and everyone could share their thoughts freely.
In conclusion, I think through these workshops and presentations we have done a good job of raising awareness about children's rights and the rights of children with special needs. Although change is made over time, and it may be difficult for us to see that we have made an difference now, I hope that what we have learned together with the teachers and the students, is a small step in the right direction.
