November 2009 marked the 20th anniversary of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), which also coincided with ChildHope’s own 20th Birthday. Over the last two decades ChildHope has developed from its initial aim of protecting children living and working on the streets to focus on preventing violence and injustice against the most vulnerable children and young people be it on the streets, in prisons, schools, homes and communities. In this time working with local partner organisations we have helped support and protect hundreds of thousands of children and their families in Africa, Asia and South America.

In 2010 we will continue marking this important anniversary and documenting our impact, so please look out for upcoming events and ways to support us to continue our work making children’s rights a reality.

In our last newsletter we announced the upcoming visit of our partner organisation in Brazil, Projeto Legal (PL). In November 2009 we had a fruitful visit from the Project Coordinator of our project on juvenile justice in Rio, and PL’s Executive Coordinator. They were able to meet and discuss their work with representatives from organisations such as Advocates for International Development (A4ID), Amnesty International, and the Esmee Fairbairn Foundation. The visit provided a great opportunity for ChildHope and PL to share learning and to raise awareness on the situation of children and young people in contact with the law in Brazil.

ChildHope has been supporting PL’s campaign calling for the closure of the notorious Santo Expedito Detention centre, and the visit was an important opportunity to raise awareness for this cause. Since our last report on the campaign, PL took advantage of the meeting on juvenile justice by Rio’s Legislative Assembly, to highlight the need to close down Santo Expedito. In January PL also organised a demonstration in remembrance of Andreu Luis and other youths who have lost their lives due to violent treatment in Brazil’s infamous juvenile detention centres.

Click here to learn more about PL’s presentation to Rio’s Legislative Assembly.

ChildHope is pleased to introduce its new Partnerships and Programmes Manager, Allan Kiwanuka. Allan will be responsible for our partnerships in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda. Allan, who is originally from Uganda, has considerable experience working for Marie Stopes International from the UK and in Uganda with various NGOs.

“I think working with ChildHope is exciting because it is very different from how most organisations work, especially its partnerships. I find it both challenging and humbling because many organisations set up offices abroad when they speak of partnerships, but we work with and through our local partners. I have already seen how well it works."

Highlighting links between women and children’s rights

In December ChildHope trustee, Angela Melchiorre, participated in a two-day international seminar at the University of London’s School of Advanced Studies. This event used the occasion of the twin anniversaries of both the UN Convention for the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) to focus on reconciling and learning from their different approaches, gaps and overlaps to make more holistic policy recommendations. At the event a number of academics and human rights practitioners presented papers on issues concerning the intersection between women’s and children’s rights and Angela presented her own fascinating work on child marriage. The event was a positive exercise in which some of the key tensions between women’s and children’s rights activism and UN conventions were addressed and a number important objectives for future collaborative work were identified. For more information and resources presented at this event visit the School’s website here.

Visit Executive Director Emma Crewe's BLOG to learn more about ChildHope's work.