Students initiate forum on child rights in Gyumri, Armenia

World Vision Middle East/Eastern Europe office (MEERO)
Reuters AlertNet, UK
June 12 2008

Senior students from World Vision’s Area Development Programme (ADP)
communities across Gyumri, Armenia recently initiated a forum on
child rights around International Children’s Day.

The forum, which took place in secondary school #11 in Ani Community
of Gyumri, the second largest city of Armenia, addressed child rights
in the context of overall human rights.

Thirty-five students from different schools in the region, many of them
members of active student groups, were involved in panel discussions
on basic rights, which they had previously identified and studied.

‘For every one of us it is very important to know our rights, no matter
if you are a child or an adult. My friends and I are eager to learn
more about what rights we have, just as we know our responsibilities’,
said 16-year-old Susanna Gasparyan, who studies in the 10th grade in
secondary school #11 of Gyumri.

Three guest specialists from the Human Rights Protection Foundation
after Sakharov (a famous human rights activist) facilitated the
forum. First they sought to gauge the level of the students’ knowledge
of human rights in general and child rights in particular.

A game called ‘Island of Rights’ followed, where participants were
divided into teams and had to solve situational problems such as,
‘the first day of regular school for a child with special needs’,
‘lack of proper sanitary conditions in schools’, ‘children involved
in farming work, etc., through the ‘application’ of relevant rights.

‘It is amazing that students are eager to learn about human rights
and particularly child rights. They criticise child abuse cases such
as severely hitting children as a way of upbringing and suggest that
those cases should be prevented through awareness raising campaigns’,
said Gayane Margaryan, one of the Human Rights Specialists.

The game was followed by another discussion, comparing these discussed
rights with those included in the Armenian legislation, such as the
right to health and education, free speech and religion, etc.

Young participants expressed their opinions on the programmes
implemented by World Vision Armenia’s Gyumri ADP. ‘We recognise and
appreciate what World Vision has implemented in our region so far:
renovated schools, helped children from poor families, established
child centres, and much, much more’, said Susanna.

The students also suggested programmes that they would like the ADP
to implement in their communities in the future: reconstruction of
schools and tree-planting, improving the teachers’ qualification,
organising youth activities, assigning psychologists in schools and
replenishing school laboratories with new equipment, etc.

World Vision’s ADP teams will use the valuable feedback and information
from the students in the planning of its programmes for the coming
five years.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress