UNICEF Celebrates 25 Years Of CRC

Did we ever think that washing hands could make a huge difference to our health? On the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the Convention of the Rights of the Child, UNICEF discussed the importance of introducing public or personal washrooms for human waste disposal and to spread awareness about the rights of children all over. Did you know that every child in our country has forty-four rights? But how many of them are actually ever practiced? In a country like ours, it is becoming necessary to educate children because every day, in fact every hour they are being discriminated against.

On the evening of 21st November 2014, UNICEF organized an event to launch the State of the World’s Children Report’ called ‘Reimagine the future: Innovation for Every Child’ which calls on governments, development professionals, businesses, activists and communities to work together and derive new ideas for tackling some of the most pressing problems faced by children – and to find new ways of scaling up the best and the most promising local innovations.

The event began with a demonstration of proper techniques for washing hands by kids and the panelist: Mr. Louis-Georges Arsenault (Representative, UNICEF India), Vandana Yadav (student from Madhya Pradesh), Suzanne Joan Coates (Chief of WASH, UNICEF India). This process has been adopted in many schools in which mid-day meal schemes are initiated

“Convention of Rights of the Child has helped in modifying the rules and regulations of India. The country has grown in terms of legal frameworks but yet there are many children who are living in a filthy situation and are being humiliated. The convention has helped children and stood on their agenda however there is much more to do,” said Mr. Louis-Georges Arsenault (Representative, UNICEF India).

In India, millions of people defecate anywhere in the world and around 6 million children under the age of five died in 2010 due to Diarrhea and Pneumonia caused by poor sanitation and hygiene. This also results in the stunting of the development of children, which stands at 48%. The event heard stories of children who were informed about their rights through an innovative card game introduced by UNICEF. They also spoke about the sanitation facilities in their home and school surroundings.

The latest edition of UNICEF’s flagship report argues that innovations such as oral rehydration salts or ready-to-use therapeutic foods have helped achieve radical changes in the lives of millions of children in the last 25 years – and the more innovative products, processes, and partnerships are critical for realizing the rights of the children.

The fully digital report includes multimedia and interactive content that invites readers to share their own ideas and innovations, and highlights outstanding innovations that are already improving lives in countries around the world from a wide range of countries, including:

• Group Hand washing Stations under Swachh Bharat, Swachh Vidyalaya campaign in India. The path breaking innovation has the potential of improving the education and health outcomes of 110 million children who have Mid-Day meals daily in school, across the country. (Please see India fact sheet for further details).

• Solar Ear, the world’s first rechargeable hearing aid battery charger, developed to meet the needs of communities lacking regular access to electricity; it can be charged via the sun, household light, or a cell phone plug. (Tendekayi Katsiga, Deaftronics, Botswana / Zimbabwe)

• Community-based management of acute malnutrition (CMAM), a model of care that moves away from the traditional, expensive, low-coverage model of inpatient therapeutic feeding centers run by aid agencies, treats people in their homes with the support of local clinics and using ready-to-use therapeutic foods. (Steve Collins, co-Founder and Director of VALID Nutrition)

• New ways to engage Liberian youth in the midst of the Ebola crisis through U-report, a mobile phone-based system developed with young people, that helps examine what issues are most important to them. (UNICEF, Liberia)

• Floating schools that provide year-round access to education for children living in flood-prone regions of Bangladesh. (Mohammed Rezwan, Founding Executive Director of the NGO Shidhulai Swanirvar Sangstha)

• Vibrasor, a device invented by two teenage girls in Colombia, to help people with hearing impairments navigate safely through busy urban areas. (Isamar Cartagena, Katherine Fernandez)

• To find a new solution to help those without regular access to electricity in Nigeria, four teenage girls invented a urine-powered generator. (Nigeria)

Commenting on the Group Hand washing Stations, Vandana Yadav said, “I didn’t know about the benefits of washing hands before we actually started implementing it in our school. Now instead of 300 students on a single tap, 300 have access to 10 taps which gets even easier, the set-up is very economical as well. However, now I have left the school but it’s overwhelming to see it being passed on.”

The event concluded with a message that people need to talk openly about any issues and there should be an end to open defecation. We all need to find out a different and innovative way of promoting sanitation and keep the surroundings clean by initiating and encouraging the people around to follow the same. Children are not just the future, they are the healthy present of this country so it is important to take care of them.