FORMER South Africa President Nelson Mandela said: “There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way in which it treats its children.”
It’s tantamount to saying that the future of one’s nation relies on how the government and the society in general upholds the rights and needs of children, who will be the next generation of leaders and citizens of the nation. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, the most accepted standard on children’s rights in the world, provides the full list of rights for children and young people under the age of 18. Based on childrensrights.ie, the children’s rights “include the right to health, education, family life, play and recreation, an adequate standard of living and to be protected from abuse and harm. Children’s rights cover their developmental and age-appropriate needs that change over time as a child grows up.”
This year, the 30th Anniversary of the United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child (CRC) will be commemorated on November 20 and also coincides with the annual celebration of the National Children’s Month in November under Republic Act No. 10661.
In line with this year’s theme “Bata, Bata: Karapatan Mo, Tungkulin Ko”, the Department of Education, through its Legal Affairs Office, in partnership with United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef), Save the Children Philippines, Council for the Welfare of Children (CWC), Plan International Philippines, Child Protection Network (CPN), and Ateneo Human Rights Center, will conduct the First National Summit on the Rights of the Child in Education on November 14-15 at The Heritage Hotel Manila, Pasay City.
The event aims to reaffirm the commitment of the stakeholders to respect, protect and fulfill the rights of the child, as enshrined in the 1987 Philippine Constitution, other domestic laws and rules, and international law, primarily the CRC; unpack the various rights of the child in basic education and provide a venue to deepen appreciation of these by both the rights-holders and duty-bearers in a rights-based framework of basic education; and celebrate successes in upholding the rights of the child and identify challenges in their realization to help address them with a whole-of-society approach, including the participation of children themselves as rights-holders.
The participants of the conference are children and their parents, teachers and personnel of public and private basic education schools, DepEd officials from central, regional, and schools division offices, and representatives from government agencies, civil society, and international organizations.
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At the same time, the National Reading Month is also celebrated every November to promote the love for reading. With this year’s theme is “Magbasa’t Umunlad”, there will be a nationwide synchronized story reading time on November 27 at nine o’clock in the morning. This is mandated by RA 10556 declaring November 27 as Araw ng Pagbasa.
The suggested activities for the National Reading Month include Mystery Readers, putting up of bulletin boards showing “leaders of readers”, conduct of shared reading time, reading challenge, #ShareABook, adoption of children with reading difficulties, Blackout Day Challenge, and the Araw ng Pagbasa Challenge.