By Septimus Senessie in Kono
With funds from the Decentralization Service Delivery Project, DSDP, the ministry of Social Welfare Gender and Children’s Affairs has trained about 25children on the 2007 Child Rights Act at the Kono District Youth complex in Koidu.
The children were drawn from their own child-to-child advocacy organisation, Children’s Forum Network, CFN, to empower them with the Actsso that they could advocate for the rights and responsibilities of children in the fourteen chiefdoms of the district.
Lead facilitator of the training, Mabinty Mansaray, who doubles as the Social Development Officer in the ministry of children’s affairs in Kono praised the Act as having a very good provision for the development of children in the country. She said children had rights but there were some limitations to them.
Mabinty feared that children might misuse provisions in the Act,and specifically pointed out that children should not fail to note that all rights in the Act had corresponding responsibilities attached to them.
The officer said that government also had the responsibilities to the children through the provision of basic necessities that would enhance the rights of the children to quality education, health care delivery system, safe environment among others.
Former president of CFN in Kono district and who served as a co-facilitator, Glenis Mani Ngaujah, thanked the children for advocating for their marginalised colleagues in the district.
He gave a brief background to the 2007 Child Rights Act, adding that it was in 1990 when the government of Sierra Leone signed the first international convention, Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) which he said was aimed at the things that would make sure that children survived, developed and were protected against harm, were able to go to school, enjoy free expression of opinions and to also grow happy healthily.
Ngaujah said another document the government signed before the Child Rights Act was the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (ACRWC) which, according to him, were compressed in a single document called Rights Act adopted by the government of Sierra Leone through the late former President Ahmad Tejan Kabba on the 7 June 2007.
He therefore encouraged children to go with tools given to them from the training to stand up for their colleague children through advocacy.
Princess Finda Joe, a JSS IIpupil of the ACEDO secondary school confessed that the facilitators were right.
“We were really focused on our rights than our responsibilities”, she said but promised that they would take the message home to teach of their colleague children who were not fortunate to attend the training.
(C) Politico 18/03/14
