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