Networking and alliance-building

Networks and alliances are established at local, municipal, departmental and national level, in order to combine efforts in the promotion and defence of children's rights. Our goal is that the children and young people themselves participate directly in these forums, presenting their own proposals, making their demands, promoting and defending their own rights.

This diagram summarises CESESMA's networks and alliances at different levels and there is more information on each level below .

• At local community level

• At municipal / district level

• National co-ordination and alliances

• International collaborations

Co-ordination at local level

In the local communities we have organised working groups to consider issues such as violence, children's rights, identity and self-esteem, children's participation and the environment, enabling participants to reflect on their own experience, practices and attitudes. The young people are gaining other skills such as organising dance groups, using theatre as an educational tool to help them explore taboo issues, craftwork with wool and textiles, wood and bamboo. Others are learning to use music and puppetry. In El Tuma-La Dalia they broadcast a radio programme called "Children and Young People's Voices Heard". The presenters are children and young people and they have organised a network of young reporters throughout the district.

We organise a training course for young community educators (promotores). We also promote natural medicine, organic agriculture and preventative healthcare, all in the context of promoting and defending children and young people's rights.

These activities at community level have an impact on families and schools, with increasing recognition of young people's own leadership, and active participation in the community.

At municipal and departmental level

The work at community level is bearing fruit, with children and young people's voices increasingly listened to and taken account of. Through the municipal structures such as the Children and Young People's Commissions, the Health and Environment Commissions, and the Municipal Development Committees, we are ensuring that the municipal development plans include a children and young people's component, and that these proposals are brought forward to decision-making bodies at national level. This enables the combining of efforts and joint planning  in order to comply with children and young people's rights. 

At national level

CODENI : The Coordinating Council of NGOs working with Children and Young People is a network that brings together organisations working with children and young people. It functions through a number of sub-commissions. CESESMA currently participates in the Non Violence Commission, the Child Labour Commission, and the Education Commission. All the sub commissions actively promote and defend children's rights, and contribute to the development of shared public policies that serve as reference points for the member organisations. Go to CODENI's web-site (Spanish only)

CC : Civil Co-ordinator, is a body that brings together civil society (voluntary sector) organisations to promote the exercise of active citizenship, intervene on public policy issues, such as the state budget, and make proposals for policy reform to the government. Go to the Coordinadora Civil's web-site (Spanish only)

Other national networks:

• National Pedagogic Movement - MPN

• National Commission for the Progressive Elimination of Child Labour – CNEPTI

• National Movement of Municipal Children and Young People's Commissions

• Commissioner for Children and young People's Rights (Procuraduría Especial)

• National Council for Integrated Care and Protection of Children and Young People - CONAPINA

• Group for the Promotion of Ecological Agriculture - GPAE

International collaboration

• Partnership with the Irish National Teachers' Organisation INTO

Financed by Irish Aid's Partnership Fund, CESESMA and the INTO have established an "Education Rights Development Partnership" between Ireland and Nicaragua. The aim of the partnership is to develop responsible global citizenship through the promotion of global awareness and solidarity within the primary school sector in Ireland, focused on the right to education and the reduction of exploitative child labour in the developing world, through working in partnership with rural primary schools in Nicaragua, development of educational materials for use in Irish and Nicaraguan primary schools, and the establishment of sustainable ongoing partnerships between schools in Ireland and Nicaragua.

In the initial stages, an INTO working group made up of Irish primary school teachers made a fact-finding visit to CESESMA in July and August 2006. Meanwhile two groups of Nicaraguan children have been documenting their daily lives and sending the resulting information – diaries, drawings, paintings and photos – to the INTO in Ireland. All this information will serve as the raw material for the design and implementation of an awareness-raising programme in Irish primary schools, focusing on education rights and child labour. CESESMA is carrying out a parallel programme with teachers, parents and young promotores/as in Nicaragua. The final stage will be the establishment of sustainable “school-twinning” partnerships between Irish and Nicaraguan schools and their local communities.

• Positively Global: International globalisation awareness education project

From 2002-2005 CESESMA worked in partnership with educational organisations in France, Germany, England, South Africa and Senegal on the Positively Global project, which aims to promote partnership between educators of north and south to increase children and young people’s understanding of global issues: how global forces are increasingly affecting our communities, and the need to prepare ourselves to resist their possible negative effects.

As part of the project, CESESMA has developed educational activities and materials on this theme, adapted to the reality of children and young people’s lives in Nicaragua’s rural communities. The specific issues examined are: globalisation and health-care, globalisation and the right to education, globalisation and migration, the international financial institutions (World Bank, IMF etc.), globalisation and trade (free trade treaties and the globalised coffee industry) and the global communications media. The new activities have been field-tested in both schools and non-formal education settings. In the formal education sector in 2005 we carried out a pilot programme with teachers and students of the Monseñor Julián Luis Barni secondary college in Samulalí.

Currently we are working with the project lead agency Leeds Development Education Centre in England seeking additional resources to enable us to publish and disseminate this material, and so continue the “Positively Global” process in Nicaragua.

Click to visit the Positively Global web-site

• International Play Association: Promoting the Child's Right to Play

IPA is an international non-governmental organisation founded in Denmark in 1961 to promote the child’s right to play. Membership is open to any individual, group or organisation which endorses the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, especially Article 31 which states:

1. States Parties recognise the right of the child to rest and leisure, to engage in play and recreational activities appropriate to the age of the child and to participate freely in cultural life and the arts.

2. States Parties shall respect and promote the right of the child to participate fully in cultural and artistic life and shall encourage the provision of appropriate and equal opportunities for cultural, artistic, recreational and leisure activity.

As an organisation committed to promoting and defending the rights of working children, CESESMA regards the rights to play, recreation and cultural participation as being of fundamental importance, and sees raising awareness of these rights as a priority issue. CESESMA includes play, recreation and cultural activities in many of its programmes.

CESESMA is currently the only IPA member organisation in Central America, but one of our long-term goals – when we can identify the necessary resources – is to work with IPA to initiate action programmes in support of these rights at local and national level.

Click to visit to IPA web-site