The Gambia, National Youth Council, in collaboration with Child Protection Alliance, Department of Social Welfare, National Youth Parliament and National Assembly of The Gambia are set to launch Children’s National Assembly in The Gambia.
Supported by UNICEF, the initiative is the first of its kind in the history of the Gambia.
This children-led and driven platform is meant to inspire and engage children to interact, discuss and dialogue with policy makers and authorities on issues affecting their growth and development.
Ahead of the launching of the Assembly in January 2019, UNICEF and partners are organizing a five-day Capacity building workshop for elected members of the Children’s National Assembly from all regions of the country.
The workshop is scheduled to take place from 26th -30th of December, 2018, and it will introduce the children to local and international instruments that Safeguard the Rights of Children, Sustainable Development Goals and how they can contribute to national development.
Mariama Sima, Advocacy and Communication Officer at National Youth Council (NYC), said that the Children National Assembly will be none statutory platform that bring children together to discuss issues affecting them and their role to national development.
Lamin K Saidy, the Program Officer at Child Protection Alliance said that the formation of Children National Assembly is not in any way doing children a favor but giving them their rights to have such as spaces to achieve their goals.
“This is what we are supposed to legally do for children, because the Gambia is signatory to the Convention on the Rights of Children (CRC) and other legal instruments. This has given the children the change to participate and contribute to the national development of the country,” he said.
On his part, Ousainou Sarr, the Child Protection Officer at UNICEF, said that the whole concept of the Children’s Assembly is not imported from the blue but demanded by children themselves.
“So many years ago from 2001 we have been organizing national platform to bring children to discuss their issues and out of the resolutions, they wanted a platform where they can also talk about their own issues”, he explained.
He added that children are human beings; they have the capability and capacity as well as having feelings and can form tangible opinions. “If we don’t give them the space to realize these rights, we are going to have adults who will be counted but not considered, because they do not have an opinion.”
He then said that: “For us we believed that every human being has the rights needed to have a platform to speak. Most of the time, we take children as subjects, but they are human beings, they deserved to be heard and lived like any other human being.
“This is why we want to give them space so that they can also talk about their own issues and come forward to government and authorities to raise their issues. If we disconnect from children when they are adult they will disconnect from us.
“We are not in any way trying to change our culture, but all the children we would work with, we will make sure that the culture is taught. We will also make sure that they would be aware that they belong to a family, community, society and religion, encourage them to practice and learn those good cultural values.”
He then reechoed that the platform is not in any way to deny parents from discipline their children, that is a duty of every parent and there is no law in the world that denied them from doing so, but the way you do it may be questioned.
Author: Sulayman Ceesay
Photo of participants during consultation in Basse, URR (Sometime in November 2018)
Photo Credit: MOYS Media Unit