Ref: 01/ 2022
Date: 12 January 2022
On Tuesday, 11 January 2022, the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) concluded a training program on “Capacity Building for Child Protection Teams on Participation, Monitoring, and Accountability to Fulfill Their Rights.” The training course was attended by 70 female and male children from child protection teams that belong to Palestine’s National Children Council- Gaza Strip. The children were divided into two groups and selected by 30 child rights organizations in the Gaza Strip and the Central Council of Students’ Parents. The 40-hour training course was held over the course of 2 weeks from 29 December 2021 to 11 January 2022.
This training comes within PCHR project “Strengthen child participation, child rights monitoring, reporting and accountability to child rights,” funded by Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad) in partnership with Save the Children and in coordination with community organizations.
This training aims to raise children’s awareness on national and international conventions pertaining to child rights, and to enhance their role in monitoring, documenting, and reporting violations against children. The training also intends to impower children to expose child rights violations, lead on data collection and accountability. Additionally, the training focused on building children’s capacity on working with and influencing governmental decision-makers at both the national and international levels, through standardized frameworks for enabling children rights and promoting inclusive and democratic Civil Society Organizations (CSO) practices. Moreover, the training seeks to share knowledge and expertise with all children, so they can plan and implement initiatives and accountability sessions to enable their rights in the Palestinian society.
The training program was divided into three main components (20 hours/component):
intervention mechanisms; violence against children and the national strategy to reduce it; empowering children in community participation, leadership, and accountability; and international and domestic protection for children.
In conclusion of the course, Raji Sourani, Director of PCHR, met with the participating children and thanked them for their interest, commitment and active participation during the training days. He encouraged them to transfer what they learned to their peers in the schools and institutions that nominated them and to nearby communities for increased impact. Sourani added that PCHR will continue working with and exerting more efforts with partners to develop such programs in a way that guarantees their active participation and role in defending their rights.
For their part, the child trainees stressed that during this training they gained new skills and knowledge, enhanced their experience, developed their theoretical and practical knowledge in child’s rights, advocacy and accountability for child rights issues with the decision makers and community participation. They added that the training will have a positive impact on their role in transferring knowledge and experience they learnt to their peers and local communities and enhancing their skills in monitoring and documenting child rights violations in addition to their role in reporting, accountability and addressing the competent authorities. Moreover, the participants praised PCHR and Save the Children for their role in advocating for child rights and Norad for sponsoring this project.
