September 2012: Children’s research published in UK
With support from the UK-based Lizianthus Trust, CESESMA's recent book of children's transformative research, "Learn to Live Without Violence", has been translated into English. We are publishing the English version in partnership with the Centre for Children and Young People’s Participation at the University of Central Lancashire in England. It will be launched during the International Children and Youth Research Network (ICYRNet) Conference in Preston, England, in September.

This book will be available from our Document Centre in October

August 2012: Children and young people research perceptions and attitudes towards child workers
Children and young people from ten communities in the municipalities of El Tuma-La Dalia and Rancho Grande have formed teams to research perceptions of and attitudes towards working children in rural communities. Their findings will help CESESMA develop new intervention strategies as part of the project “Children and young people’s participation in the prevention of economic exploitation” (part of Save the Children Canada’s “Children Lead the Way” programme).

August 2012: CESESMA education adviser to undertake doctoral research in Ireland
Child participation specialist Harry Shier, who has worked in CESESMA since 2001, has won a doctoral studentship from Queen’s University Belfast in Northern Ireland to research the impact of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child on children’s experience of schooling in different countries. The research will make use of the “transformative research with children and young people” method developed by CESESMA in Nicaragua.

August 2012: CODENI publishes child-friendly version of UN Recommendations
In an event in Managua on 15 August, the Nicaraguan Coordinating Committee of NGOs working with children and young people (CODENI) launched a child-friendly version of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child’s recommend-ations to the government of Nicaragua, produced by three teams of young consultants facilitated by CESESMA and sister organisation La Amistad from Matagalpa last year. Along with the child-friendly version, CODENI is also publishing a Facilitator’s Guide, written by CESESMA, so that all member NGOs will be able to facilitate children and young people in mobilising to demand compliance with the UN recommendations.

Both documents are available form our Document Centre (Spanish only)

July 2012: Community Learning Centre in Casas Blancas reopens its doors
After a six-month extension and improvement project, CESESMA’s Community Learning Centre in Casas Blancas, La Dalia, reopened its doors to the public on 27th July. As well as improvements to the main hall and carpentry workshop, we have added a new classroom, modern toilets and an office for the local area team.

July 2012: CESESMA support staff take on child protection
For CESESMA, protection of the children and young people we work with is a shared responsibility for the whole team. To help us put this into practice, all our support workers: housekeepers, drivers, caretakers, technical, administration and accounts staff, participated in a day workshop on child protection, where each person looked at the relevance of CESESMA’s child protection policy to their specific role, and the responsibility that this implies for each person.

July 2012: Children and young people undertake community appraisals
Children and young people from twenty rural communities in the districts of El Tuma-La Dalia and Rancho Grande have formed research teams to undertake community appraisals. They will be supported by CESESMA facilitators so that the experience will also provide them with knowledge and skills they can use on future research projects. The resulting community appraisal reports will help CESESMA to improve intervention strategies in these communities, particularly in relation to education rights.

July 2012: Biointensive food growing course
32 children and young people from Tuma-La Dalia are participating in a new ecological agriculture course, based on the biointensive farming method; a sustainable agriculture model that enables greater quantities of food to be grown in small areas such as family kitchen gardens and back yards. In the photo the young promotores/as are doing practical work in the vegetable plot at CESESMA’s Community Learning Centre in Casas Blancas. CESESMA is running parallel training workshops with primary school teachers, and also coordinating networks of sustainable agriculture promotores/as in the local communities.

July 2012: Workshops on reconstructing masculinity
Thirty boys and young men from four districts participated in a four-day workshop in San Ramón to learn about aspects of masculinity, such as male identity, male sexuality, machismo (Latin American sexism), responsible fatherhood and men’s relationships. Another aim of the workshop was for the young men to learn and practice techniques for sharing these ideas with other men and boys in their communities, so as to generate a multiplier effect to help reduce gender-based violence.

July 2012: Education team documents life-story of “Safe, Quality Schools” project
In July the team working on CESESMA’s Safe, Quality Schools project met in Casas Blancas to reconstruct the life-line of the project from 2008 to the present, as a first step in documenting the experience. The team will use the information and analysis that this generates to contribute a chapter to an important new book on the relevance of human rights in education in different countries, due to be published early in 2013.

July 2012: Senior Policy Officer of Children’s Commissioner for England visits CESESMA
En July Lisa Davis, Senior Policy Officer for Equality and Rights in the office of the Children’s Commissioner for England visited CESESMA. After a week spent participating in various activities, Lisa commented, “It has been a privilege to visit and obverse the work of CESESMA. CESESMA's work on empowering children, young people and communities to promote and protect children's rights is inspiring. They work on some of the most pressing issues in challenging environments. I have been able to enhance my knowledge of children's participation and I am leaving with new tools and techniques for the promotion and protection of children's rights”.

June 2012: Children’s Reading Networks strengthened
Through a series of participative workshops, CESESMA has strengthened the Children’s Reading Networks in El Tuma-La Dalia, Rancho Grande and Waslala. The children and young people who make up the Reading Networks learned new skills for working with groups, promoting creativity and imagination, and organising reading and story-telling sessions with children in local schools.

June 2012: Teachers promote recycling with creativity
Fifty primary school teachers from Waslala and Rancho Grande took part in a workshop on recycling, with the emphasis on environmental awareness, conservation, and creativity. They learned how to create a wide range of decorative products using materials such as old exercise books and waste paper.

June 2012: CESESMA trains Save the Children and its partner organisations on monitoring and evaluation of children’s participation
CESESMA has run two workshops for Save the Children Nicaragua and its partners on the monitoring and evaluation of children’s participation, based on the new international framework, “A step change in the Monitoring and evaluation of children’s participation”, that CESESMA is currently piloting (a.k.a. “A Change of Rhythm” in Nicaragua). The first workshop was for the organisations that make up the National Children’s Participation Working Group that Save the Children coordinates, and the second was for Save the Children’s programme officers and other key partners.

June 2012: Departmental forum on Child Labour in Matagalpa
To celebrate the World Day Against Child Labour on 12 June, a departmental forum and festival were held in Matagalpa. Participants included many working children and young people and their parents along with organisations and state institutions that work with them. The participating groups and organisations considered the progress made towards the prevention of economic exploitation, and discussed the challenges faced and commitments made to help working children stay in school.

May 2012: CESESMA forms children’s advisory groups
As part of our work on the “Change of Rhythm” project, CESESMA has formed three “Area Teams” of children and young people to advise us on our educational work in general, and the monitoring and evaluation project in particular. They will also play a part in the continuous monitoring of activities and regular evaluation of outcomes. As well as representatives elected by the children’s focus groups held in February and March, the new advisory groups include representatives of the Primary School Students Federation (FePri), children’s reading networks, ecological agriculture groups and the reconstructing masculinities group.

May 2012: CESESMA publishes new book of children and young people’s research
The research into children’s views on the relevance of sexual and reproductive rights in their lives, carried out by teams of young researchers from seven communities in Yasica Sur, San Ramón, in February and March, has been compiled and published in a new book, “We learned that sexuality is thinking, acting and feeling”. The book is available from our digital Document Centre, or in print from our San Ramón office (Spanish only).

May 2012: CESESMA supports development of child protection guidelines in schools
Three primary schools in El Tuma-La Dalia, Rancho Grande and Waslala have developed child protection guidelines to help guard against risks to children and young people. The children and young people themselves took a lead role in developing and agreeing the guidelines, with the support of parents, teachers and school heads.

April 2012: Parents carry out school mapping
Mothers and fathers of children from 27 schools in three municipalities have received training on education rights and have use this new knowledge in applying the "school mapping" technique in their schools. This enables them to identify children outside the school system so as to find ways to reintegrate them into school.

April 2012: Young Consultants from Santa Martha coffee plantation advise UN Committee on the Rights of the Child
Responding to a call from the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child for contributions to a new General Comment on children's rights and the business sector, the Young Consultants' Team from Santa Martha sent them a copy of their 2009 report on the relationship between business and humans rights on the plantation. As a result, the children's report, "Respete nuestros derechos", is now available on the website of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR):
http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/crc/SubmissionsCRCBusinessSector.htm

An English translation, "Rights and Wrongs", is available from CESESMA's Document Centre.