- One of the challenges for adults to promote and build spaces for the leading participation of childhoods is that today's society has been educated and used to the fact that children are not listened to, they are taught to “obey”, to be efficient and productive, not to think too much.
- Promoting leading and free participation in childhood brings them closer to knowing and demanding their rights from society and the State, strengthens critical thinking, self-esteem, intergenerational dialogue, exchange of experiences and knowledge. As adults, we only accompany the participation processes.
The Initiative Weaving Childhood Networks for Latin America and the Caribbean has promoted actions to build child and youth citizenship, such as the Regional Meeting of children and adolescents #We are the Protagonists ofChange and cycles of Webinars #OurFuture in the Covid-19 Era, where Latin American and Caribbean girls, boys and adolescents have participated prominently and freely. These spaces are a meeting point for powerful girls and boys.
To converse and reflect on How to open spaces for leading participation?, The initiative Weaving Childhood Nets, held a Webinar where they participated: Ana María Watson from the Children's Rights Initiative Group (GIN), in Peru; Diana Zamora from Child Participation of Tejiendo Redes Infancia, Santiago, a young person and activist for children's rights, from Argentina, Mercy from Peru and Juan Martín Pérez García, Regional Coordinator Weaving Networks Childhood.
Participation and listening to girls, boys and adolescents is a result of the Convention on the Rights of the Child; Article 12 states that children have the right to be heard and from there derives the right to participation, said Ana María Watson, who also pointed out the importance of civil society initiatives and organizations to promote spaces for leading participation childhood, especially in the context of a pandemic.
Regarding the importance of putting the emphasis on leading and free participation, Juan Martin Pérez García, said that promoting this exercise is an opportunity for children to know and exercise their rights and to know the challenges faced by girls, boys and young people, from their own experiences and opinions, and not from how adults see them, in addition to looking at the obligations of the State.
Diana Zamora defined the protagonist participation of childhoods as the processes in which they speak with their own voice and adults accompany, but do not intervene, eliminating misconceptions such as that girls, boys and adolescents are "unfinished" or minors. He recalled that free participation strengthens critical thinking, self-esteem, intergenerational dialogue, exchange of experiences and knowledge.
For his part, Santiago, from Argentina, expressed that young people and children have the right to be heard, and that this right is constantly violated by adults, when they are not asked about the decisions of their environment and their opinions are excluded; “An older person can have a point of view about what adolescents are experiencing, but what better way than to ask ourselves”; said.
Finally, the participants in this Webinar made a balance on the aspects in which society can work to improve and promote the protagonist participation of children, for example: Without adult effort, there is no protagonist participation; It is necessary to learn about the rights of participation for children, face and break adult resistance, which is generally based on the fear that participation will flourish, understand that participation involves a learning process, accept that girls, boys and adolescents have the ability to organize.
The message of reflection that must reach families, society and decision makers is that "we cannot educate and accompany girls of the new millennium, with tools from the last century"
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Ollin.TV is an Internet television channel created as part of Weaving Childhood Networks in Latin America and the Caribbean, an initiative co-financed by the European Union, which seeks to contribute to the strengthening and consolidation of a platform for the defense of children and adolescents in 20 countries of America Latin and the Caribbean.
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