“Best Practice der Kinder- und Jugendbeteiligung in den Kinderrechts-Netzwerken in Österreich, Deutschland und Schweiz” Erasmus Project

Project Title

“Best Practice der Kinder- und Jugendbeteiligung in den Kinderrechts-Netzwerken in Österreich, Deutschland und Schweiz”

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for youth

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2016

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Reaching the policy level/dialogue with decision makers; Youth (Participation, Youth Work, Youth Policy) ; Home and justice affairs (human rights & rule of law)

Project Summary

The children’s rights networks from Austria, Germany and Switzerland entered into a strategic partnership within the framework of ERASMUS + Youth in Action between September 2016 and February 2018 in order to exchange best practices on youth participation. The two central questions of the project were:
1) How can child and youth participation in the UN child rights monitoring process succeed?
2) How can long-term participation of children and youth in the institutional context of a children’s rights network (National Coalition) succeed?

This was based on the existing documents and guidelines of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child and Child Rights Connect on child and youth participation in the UN child rights monitoring process. These documents provide an introduction and overview of many detailed questions of child and youth participation in the UN child rights monitoring process, both for child rights networks and for young people themselves. They are therefore an indispensable and important basis for all those who want to include children and young people in the reporting process. However they all date from 2009 to 2014. Since the involvement of children and young people in the UN dialogue has increased steadily and in many ways in recent years, it seemed sensible for the three child rights networks to exchange and reflect on their experiences, including with the members of the UN Committee.

In the course of the project, three transnational meetings took place in Vienna (December 2016), Geneva (May 2017) and Berlin (September 2017). At least five representatives of member organisations of each children rights network of the partner countries, who deal with the topic of child participation took part. Six adolescents aged 16-18 took part in the 2nd and 3d project meeting (It was planed and budgeted just for the 2nd meeting.). In Geneva they gathered experience directly on the ground by first attending a meeting of the UN-Committee on the Rights of the Child and, on the evening of the same day, by holding a discussion with 13 out of 18 members of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, together with representatives of the three child rights networks, on the participation of young people in the UN dialogue. The impressions and opinions of the young people were an important sounding board for us in the discussion which factors contribute to a successful participation of children and young people in the UN child rights monitoring process. These results of the young people, written by the young people themselves at the 3rd project meeting in Berlin, were therefore first and central priority.

Besides online surveys have been devised and implemented, both on the regional/international level and on the national level of the three project partner networks. The collected results were summarized in five outcome documents (partly translated into English) and published:
(1) Experience in youth participation in NC context
(2) Best Practices of youth participation at the UN Children’s Rights Committee
(3) National Recommendation catalogues for implementing long-term youth participation in NCs
(4) Conclusions concerning further transnational cooperation
(5) Process documentation and evaluation / process support.
Starting in 2018, all results were disseminated on both national as well as at international level. This has been an important step for initiating youth participation at institutional level of the NCs involved in the project. In addition to the 20-25 people who made up the national “core team” (15-20 professionals in the field of children’s rights work and six young people), another 300 people were involved through discussions and networking activities in the project.The strategic partnership “Best Practice of child and youth participation in the children’s rights networks in Austria, Germany and Switzerland” built the foundation for sustainable, transnational cooperation and on the other hand might influence the development of youth participation within the participating organizations and the United Nations.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 53168,63 Eur

Project Coordinator

Verein zur Förderung der National Coalition – Netzwerk Kinderrechte Österreich & Country: AT

Project Partners

• Netzwerk Kinderrechte Schweiz
• National Coalition Germany-Network for the Implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child