ENYA 2020 “Let’s Talk Young Let’s Talk about Children’s Rights in decision-making”

ENYA 2020 "Let's Talk Young, Let's Talk About Children's Rights in decision-making" child participation project aims at providing a forum for the expression of children and young people’s views and concerns regarding how to ensure the protection and promotion of their rights, and how to involve them in the development of legislation, policies and decisions that affect them.

Young people from 13 countries (Andalusia, Basque country, Catalonia, Cyprus, Greece, Iceland, Malta, Montenegro, Northern Ireland, Norway, Scotland, Slovakia, and Sweden) participated in the project and worked to develop recommendations on the annual theme of Child Rights Impact Assessment (CRIA).
Between February and October 2020, ENYA country teams organised several meeting and child participation activities, most of them online due to the health situation and the COVID-19 crisis. Two elected young people per country/region participated in the ENYA Forum, which took place on Zoom on 3-4 October 2020. 26 young people, 18 Coordinators, the ENOC Secretariat and several Ombudspersons and Commissioners for Children met online over this two days event. The ENYA Forum was hosted by the Norwegian Ombudsman for Children, General Coordinator of ENYA 2020 activities.
Country/region teams presented their domestic work and recommendations and discussed various aspects of CRIA, child participation and rights of LGBTIQ+ children. Indeed, one of the main purpose of the project was to consult children and young people about how they see their involvement in CRIAs, and more broadly in policy and decision making processes. Children’s participation has therefore been an important topic discussed. As for LGBTIQ+ rights, this was chosen as a supporting topic to make CRIA less abstract for the young people. This topic has been used as a case study to understand how CRIA can be used as a tool, at domestic levels but also during the ENYA Forum through an Escape game where the young people had to assess the impact on children’s rights of a new law about the rights of LGBTIQ+ children. Children and young people then worked and agreed on a set of common recommendations on the three above mentioned topics, using the Mural software for brainstorming.Young advisors who participated in the ENYA Online Forum also participated in the ENOC 24th Annual Conference taking place online on 16-17 November 2020 and presented their recommendations to the participants. The ENYA recommendations are reflected in the ENOC policy statement on Child Rights Impact Assessment.

ENOC 2020 Annual Conference and General Assembly meeting

ENYA Forum “Let’s Talk Young Let’s Talk about Children’s Rights in decision-making”

ENOC 2020 Online Seminar

Statement from the ENOC Bureau

Statement from ENOC Chair, Koulla Yiasouma

Statement from ENOC Chair-elect, Bruce Adamson

Presentation video of young participants in the ENYA Forum

Andalusia

Basque country

Basque country

Catalonia

Cyprus

Greece

Malta

Montenegro

Northern Ireland

Norway

Scotland

Slovakia