Consultation of nearly 2,000 children and youth is released
FMSI has released a publication with a summary of a large consultation of 1,700 children and youth, aged 5 – 17, of 13 countries that will contribute to a major United Nations’ debate on Sept. 28 in Geneva, Switzerland.
Its purpose is to give children greater rights on defending their own Human Rights and to have a voice in the field of politics and in civil society.
The 50-page consultation designed by UMBRASIL is titled EMPOWER THOSE WHO HAVE NO VOICES Day of General Discussion 2018: “Protecting and empowering children as human rights defenders”, and is available in English | Español | Português.
The children that were consulted come from Australia, the Philippines, Spain, Portugal, Canada, Mexico, Colombia, Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, Chile, United States and Madagascar.
Fourteen Marists will attend the UN’s Day of General Discussion later this month including Br Álvaro Sepúlveda, Cassandra Schumacher and Br Rick Carey of FMSI, as well as nine school teachers and directors from Brazil and two from Chile.
Three of them are Marist youth: Camila Álvarez Cortés, aged 17 of La Serena, Chile, Gabriel Genivaldo dos Santos, aged 16 of Curitiba, Brazil, and Pedro Cezarino Gouvea, aged 11 of Sao Paulo, Brazil.
Camila and Gabriel will be the only two Marists speaking at the event.
For the event, videos from Brazil, Portugal and Mexico have also been published with interviews of several Marist children.
For more background information on how the consultation was carried out, click here, and for information on the Day of General Discussion 2018 click here.
FMSI is the foundation created by the Institute to promote and protect the rights of children. FMSI carries on its mission through the activity of advocacy and lobbyingand with projects in the countries in which the Marists are present.
FMSI was constituted in 2007 in Italy as a non-profit organization of social usefulness (ONLUS).
From 2011 it has the special consultative status before the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) of the United Nations.
FMSI is member of: Bureau International Catholique de l’Enfance (BICE), Centre Catholique International de Genève (CCIG), Child Rights Connect, Movimiento Mundial por la Infancia de Latinoamérica y El Caribe, FOCSIV (Federazione degli Organismi Cristiani Servizio Internazionale Volontario), Observatorio Niñez y Adolescencia (ONA), Santiago de Chile.