The Vietnam Delegation brought to the forum 4 representatives from diverse backgrounds and locations of Vietnam.They were chosen based on their understanding and active involvement in the process leading up to UNGASS and current involvement in taking furthur outcomes and action implementation follow up UNGASS.Ha Thi Lan Anh and Nguyen Chau Thuy Trang were Ngos and governmental delegates at Children’s Forum and UNGASS.Nguyen Hoai Thu and Vu Thanh Ha,first time participants at an international forum, are active child rights advocators.All of the four girls are also youth broadcast,photographer and writer from Young Journalists Group (also known as Junior Reporters Club) of Radio Voice of Vietnam,PhotoVoice and Young Pioneer Newspaper who are using media as a creative tool to promote child rights and child participation.
This report will cover their day by day activities at the recent children and young people’s forum in Seoul.
We reached Incheon Airport in the morning.There were already groups from Laos,Indonesia, Thai who arrived earlier waiting for us .Lan Anh anh Trang were immediately recognized by old fellows at UNGASS.Despite all tiresome and jet lag,the children quickly started ice-breaking,getting to know one another while waiting for the bus to pick us up.A corner of Incheon Airport was soon filled with lots of laughters and hellos in different languages.
Minus 4 celcious degree Seoul welcomed us with festive white snow!! The children mostly from tropical,island and warmer corners of the globe were freezing yet very excited. We checked in at Yonsei University Guesthouse , our sleeping nest,informal and chill out center for the rest of the week. Delegations from 15 countries,in their thickest and warmest clothes ready to bear and enjoy colder Korea,walked to Jessica’s Pizzeria and were served a tasty Italian lunch while still being curious “whats kimchi?”
In the afternoon, responding to the children’s appeal, the organizers generously offered us a Seoul Tour.We went to visit old castles of famous Korean King Choseon, climbed up to Namson Mountain and enjoyed the magnificent view from the skyline of the land of morning calm covered by snow.During the tour,countries were grouped together (Vietnam were grouped with Phillipines),which gave us good chance to make people feel comfortable about each other.
The children could,finally,tasted the famous Korean Kimchi at dinner at Angel’s Heaven. Angel’s Haven is a social welfare society for disabled and orphan children.It was established in 1953 after the Korean War by Mr.Sung Yul Yoon with the aim to improve the lives for abandoned and suffering children and disabled persons.Angel’s Heaven is accredited with the United Nations as an Ngo in partnership with Unicef and was invited to UNGASS Prepcomps. Accompanying three Korean children, the Director and kindered spirit Mr Kyu Hwan Cho came to UNGASS Prepcom 2 and 3. Being dedicated to the development and participation of children, Mr Cho and Angel’s Heaven offered Unicef and World Vision help in logistical organization and provided us with a great meeting space where we felt truly welcomed,safe and comfortable to discuss our issues in a free,fun and child-friendly environment.
Our first night at Angel’s heaven marked a fun and interesting orientation session led by the facilitator team including Lakan-a Phillipino teacher and artist,Fei- a Maylaysian X-fresh online teen community worker,Ariel,John Paul and Davakhuu UNGASS fellows from China,Phillipines and Mongolia. Each delegation were free to use their dancing and musical talents to create unique introductions of their country in the “getting –to-know” part. Then we moved on to the expectation check toward the forum.Some of the main expectations of the children toward the rest of the week were to learn more about children’s rights and UNGASS process,to network with child advocators in other countries,to learn skills to carry out projects and last but not least to make new friends!! To make the forum process an effective one,the children set up a Forum’s rules where they asked each participant to be responsible,to be fully involved,be respective,supportive and cooperative with one another so as everyone could participate equally and effectively regardless of languages, ages and previous international experiences.Everything looked very promising.Everyone was tired but excited.
Escaping from the cold breeze outside of the bus,we ran into cosy Angel’s heaven and spent the day there working hard in different sessions.
In the morning, we had 3 sessions to report on contextualization of forum within UNGASSoC and beyond,followed by a report on the key results and issues at UNGASS and ended by the session where delegates who were at UNGASS shared their experiences and thoughts. Ungass delegates reported on the World fit for Children and a World fit for Us.In the experience sharing part,Davakhuu from Mongolia talked about the opening ceremony while Khairul from Malaysia and Jose from East Timor shared their experience at the Children and armed conflict group. Lan Anh from Vietnam talked about side events including demonstration for child rights, Young General Assembly workshop,Amazing world and StreetVision galleries while YiYu from China reported on the Say Yes to Children Campaign and the Intergenerational Dialogues of Asia region.Ariel from China and Juan Paul also talked about some problems preventing full participation of some children at UNGASS and their memories about the closing ceremony and meetings with well known people such as Kofi Annan,Bill Gates etc.These children also answered questions raised by forum participants.
In the afternoon, after some cool refreshing energizer games,we had the first workshop entitled “Country updated regarding National Plan of Actions and Beijing Declration”. Each country was given some questions to brainstorm.We reported and reflected the progress of NPAs and Beijing Declaration.All reports were written and decorated on posters and each country was assigned a booth or an area on the wall.We then had informal debriefing and information sharing per country on the gallery walk.While the progress of NPAs are not the same, there was a good sign that all countries were actually putting their promises into actions.For example, many countries started to build laws on protection and care of children, cooperated with Ngos to carry out projects to support child development,supported child participation by organizing national children’s councils and national children’s conferences etc.However, the speed of implementation and the effectiveness of the process in different countries were different. Why was that? This was the question to challenge the forum delegates which they would explore furthur on the next day.
Evening was time to socialize and discover about exotic countries and culture.The computer’s room at YongSei Guesthouse became our chat box.That was also where a group of media youth got to know one another and exchanged experiences on promoting child rights through media.Lan Anh from Vietnam radio and student magazine,Peter Chung aTV host of the International Day of Broadcasting for Children in Fiji, Khairul and Sam from internet children magazine in Malaysia,Arnold the aspiring leader of National Children’s Council of Mongolia ,Thuy Trang a Vietnamese child photographer whose works were featured on States of the World Children 2003 and many others started networking quickly on the second day at no where else but that little chat box
On the second day of the forum, we spent the morning going through the country updates again before moving to workshop 2 where we discussed about similarities and differences in country updates on NPAs in 3 aspects : accompolishment,enabling factors and disabling factors.To ease the workshop process and ensure that all children could speak their opinions,we were devided into language/country groups.The children had watched dog their governments in NPAs implementation and reported that in most countries children’s issues were put on national agenda as one of the top priorities ,which was a positive change.In many countries, governmental delegations and children delegates at UNGASS had reported about the outcomes of UNGASS and spread the message of CRC and follow up UNGASS activities in their countries. Governments and Ngos also started spending more national funding on children issues.
The key factors that enabled this progress to happen,according to the children, were that governments started to be more awared and gained better understanding toward CRC after UNGASS process and Say Yes for Children Campaign ; better cooperations between governments and Ngos and children participation were being built or strengthened,and lastly governments and adults Ngos were committed and dedicated to the idea of “a world fit for children” and “ a world for us” more than ever before.
However, in many country this process was happening slowly and not yet effectively.The common disabling factor that challenged NPAs implementation was the lack of resources in terms of finance and facilities as well as knowledge and skills of the public,adult and social workers when it came to children issues.
The children delegates expressed that to turn this disabling factors into enabling factors required commitment between government,organizations and importantly children and young people participation.That was when workshop 3 came in.Workshop 3 focused on the assessing and evaluation of effectiveness of children and Young People’s Participation. The delegates talked about the factors that facilitated or hindered child participation,how their participation were responded by government and civil society and rationale for such.In some countries such as Vietnam,Cambodia,Mongolia,Philllipines,the children had national children’s forums and national children’s councils initiatives but had not yet established a mechanism for constant participation of children. In countries like Korea,Laos,China etc children participation was still limited. While there had been positive responses from public towar children’s participation,the children said there were still challenges toward child participation from grassgroot levels within their families,schools and communities.These reflected in the fact that many children could not voice their opinions in families or schools,abadoned to organize child-led organization etc. However,children with creativity and ability had several ways to lobby for child participation. Be it through media,regional networking or public advocacy on CRC and UNGASS in schools and local communities through children clubs,arts and other creative approaches.
The children spent the night to prepare for the Children’s Presentation on Child Participation on the launching of the State of the World’s Children the next day.
Everyone went to Korea National Press Center where the Global launching of the States of the World’s Children ceremony was held. This event were attended by Korean officials including a Vice Minister and two Korean Unicef goodwill ambassador , a famous writer and a fashion designer.The press were invited to cover the ceremony and interview children delegates of the forum.
Our sleepless night to prepare for the event was worth.The children came to the ceremony as live model for child participation.They also hoped to build contacts,share their experience at the forum and lobby for child participation.Several speeches were given by Korean officials and several adults on the State of World Children 2003.After that, the presentation of children’s forum delegates on child participation was dilivered in a creative way through individual presentations on what “child participation “ meant and how it changed their lives,drama and sketches on the importance of child participation and current problems preventing child participation.The presentation ended with a message and an appeal from Korean children to their government to support child participation.Being awared of the audience and the fact that Korea was at election time ,the children concluded the presentation with the message :”A government that support child participation is the government of tomorrow”.The presentation received positive response and applause from the audience.However,surprisingly enough,when given time to interview us,no press had any question even though the children were all ready to answer any question.
In the afternoon, we had workshop 4 which dealed with regional planning and strategizing on follow-up actions. Mr.Victor Karunna and Mr.Jay Wisecaser from Unicef and Save the Children Alliance in Bangkok,who had been following Asian children through out this process from Beijing to New York to Seoul,updated us on information regarding present networks such as Asian Pacific youth network,child participation emailing list, Children As Partners Initiative and gave us information on upcoming events such as Ministerial Conference in Bali Indonesia.We gave back ideas on how to monitor and evaluate mechanisms to ensure constant and effective child participation in these events and proposed regional support requirements.We proposed to set up a regional networking where young people with previous experiences could help children to get invovled and shared skills in participation.We also proposed to write a letter which would be sent to all governments and Ngos to call for their support in having children delegates in their governmental delegation at all Ministerial Conferences from now on.
In the evening, we were invited to dinner hosted by administration of Seoul city. It was a great recognition and hostalbility that we all appreciated.Besides,the food was awesome and everyone enjoyed socializing and practising a couple of Korean words they just learnt a lot.
The whole day was spent on Children’s Country action plans and field trips.The Vietnam team broke up into 2 groups. Thu was building a children’s country plan whereas Lan Anh,Trang and Ha joined the Building regional network group.All these regional and country projects were again posted for the gallery walk tour.Through this session the delegates learnt to write a project proposal with SMART strategy (simple,managable,adjustable,realistic,time-bound).
The delegates were really enthusiastic about the networking project as they were told there was funding possibility from Unicef and Save the Children Alliance for this project if
it was SMART built.The networking group was broken into sub-group. While one group worked on the structure and framework of the network,the other dealed with a motto and promotional campaign for the network.After lengthy discussion,they settled for
for 'Voices Out, Voices In'.Basically, the motto encouraged a child to 'voice out' his or her opinions, while it was hoped that adults would let the same 'voice in', and understand or accept their views.The network would assist and support country members to lobby for child participation as well as watch dog the governments in implementation of NPAs.
Filed visits were programmed for the afternoon.Field visits were awesome experience and most enjoyed by many delegates. We had a tour around Angel’s heaven.This tour helped the delegates to study more about the history and activities of Angels’s heaven. Everyone was really touched too see all the pictures of the school and meet some students,volunteers and teachers.We were even more inspired by all the poetry books,ceramic art works done by these talented differently abled youth.After the Angel’s heaven tour,people were devided in three groups to visit Alternative School,Cultural center and Youth media center.Lan Anh was in the youth media team.She went to see the Seoul Youth Digital Media center- SSRO .It is non profit organization specialized in digital media education and is dedicated to teaching young people practical skills in media.It contributes to promotion of youth media activity and extension of media contents for and by youth.The whole group was warmly welcomed by young broadcasts.After the ‘cookies and doughnut’ session, the delegates asked staff at SSRO several questions.Following that was a short feature on the Children’s forum delegates on Internet broadcasting station of SSRO. So each of us got a chance to say what a world fit for children meant to us and our talks would be broadcast on ssro.net.Other groups went to alternative schools where the students built their individualized study programme and organized their own musical bands as part of their study. The group that went to cultural center were got involved in a programme where they used music and storytelling to share messages on life and their feelings toward children’s rights. Everyone learnt a great deal and appreciated the field trips which gave them more insights on the life of young people in Korea.It was also a good refreshment before coming back to work hard in conference room.
Another appeal from the children was accepted. Thursday night was spent just for shopping!! Everyone grabbed this chance to buy one another gifts, buy souvinirs home or just enjoyed the atmostphere of traditional market of Seoul.The smell of festive season was all around in the air.Until that day, the children had got to know one another and shopping together was a sweet memory for all to carry home together beside piles of papers they gathered from the conference.
At night a group of key kids (each country had a key kid to evaluate each working day to organizers and helped facilitators to facilitate the conference better) gathered to prepare for the solidary night which would happen the next day.Tired after shopping, the
energy was still bubbling.
Friday was the last day and also the most busy day.In the morning we had skill workshop, the advocacy workshop host by Mr Jay while in the next room leadership skill workshop led by Lakan,our energetic facilitator. The participants learnt advocacy and leadership skills through various games,voice training,brainstorming together and other kind of practice.The skill workshops were both helpful and fun.At the same time the skill workshops went on, a group of delegates separated to work on drafting the Seoul Resolution.Lan Anh from Vietnam,Khairul from Malaysia,Peter from Fiji and Marlon from Phillipines took the task.The draft was then presented to the whole group to have inputs.At lunch time,Lan Anh went back to Computer’s room to incorporate all input and the final version was presented.In the afternoon,Khairul and Peter presented the Seoul Resolution again and it was finally adopted by all participants.
The rest of the afternoon was spent on the selection process and criteria for children and young people delegate to Prepcom of Ministerial Conference in Bali 2003.Each country nominated one candidate and ballots were used to ensure a democratic election.The Vietname delegation nominated Vu Thanh Ha.The delegates agreed to choose at least 2 boys and 2 girls to ensure gender balance.After an intense selection full of noisy cheers and also few dissapointed silence, five delegates were elected to represent the children and young people of 3rd regional forum to present at Bali conference.They were Peter Chung from Fiji,Michiko from Japan,Don from Korea, Yuyi from China and Ranata from Cambodia.The five representatives had a busy time receiving congratulations,high five and hugs from their voters and competitors.
Before closing the forum, regional and country projects nominated some key contact person to ensure furthur networking after the forum. Lan Anh was chosen the contact person for the Vietnam team.Peter Chung from Fiji and Khairul from Malaysia would be contact person for the regional projects.Lan Anh from Vietnam and Khairul from Malaysia would be coordinators for East Asia Paific Children and Young People’s Conference’s Network with support of Mr.Victor Karunna at Unicef Bangkok and Jay Wisecaser at Save the Children Alliance Bangkok.
The last activity of the conference was when everyone picked up a color paper heart and wrote down either a wish or a commitment. Some children wished they could tell their friends more about CRC,wished a world fit for children would be reality while other wished they could study English better to communicate easier at next conferences or hoped this networking and frienships they made at the forum would last forever etc. All the colorful hearts were sticked on a huge red heart with the Resolution from Seoul at its center.This heart from the children and young people would be dilivered to the Ministerial Conference in Bali by the 5 recently elected representatives.
The closing ceremony was held in the evening at Seoul University of Art guesthouse which looked like a some star hotel from outside and very simply yet cosy Korean style from inside.The closing ceremony was incredibly great!! Each country shared a cultural performance from beautiful dance of Mongolian troupe to groovy move of the Islanders,from traditional folk song of Vietnam to the rock version of Korean Arirang.After cultural performance and our hearty thanks to Angel’s heaven and organizers was disco time!! Colorful traditional costumes surpass the color lights the dosco.Everyone had great time dancing until midnight.After lots of photos,hugs and little tears,people said goodbye.
We, the representatives of children from 15 countries including Cambodia, China, East Timor, Fiji, Indonesia, Japan, Lao PDR, Republic of Korea, Malaysia, Mongolia, Philippines, Thailand, Tuvalu, Vanuatu and Vietnam participating in the 3rd East Asia Pacific Regional Children and Young People’s Forum from 9th to 13th December 2002, make this resolution to kindly urge governments, NGOs and civil society to support child participation in the process of creating a world fit for us.
Children have historically been seen and not heard. We are now moving into a world where the governments are having concrete plans to promote child rights, NGOs are actively supporting children movements and the civil society taking responsibility for the children. The Convention on the Rights of the Child emphasizes that children have the right to genuine participation. This is simply because we have a better understanding and knowledge regarding our own issues. Our full potential, creativity and leadership skills can only be realized if given the opportunity.
Children should have the opportunity to participate in the planning, implementing, monitoring, and evaluating in local, national and international events. Children should have the opportunity to participate in all levels of participation especially in government agencies, NGOs and civil society concerning us.
We would like governments, non-governmental organizations and the civil society to fully support the children by:
Facilitating capacity building of children in participation skills,
Accepting the issues and views forwarded by the children at all local, national and international events regarding children
Including the children’s issues and views in the outcome document of all local, national and international events regarding us.
With all due respect, we urge that you would take into consideration and to act upon the proposal that the children have put forward and that you will support the movement for a world fit for all of us.
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