On Wednesday 20th November 2013, it was the UN Universal Children’s Day.  This marks the day on which the Assembly adopted the Declaration of the Rights of the Child, in 1959, and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, in 1989.

Children on the Edge works to restore the ingredients of a full childhood and the convention on the rights of the child guide our projects throughout the world.

This year, we’ve partnered up with some local schools to raise the profile of our work and to engage local school children in discussion around the global issue of children’s rights.

Beckie has been visiting schools and delivering workshops, assemblies and class activities all designed to spark conversation and introduce our work.

This project started just before the school holidays with a visit to our good friends at Birdham Primary School.  The children there had been raising money for our projects all year with a particular focus on the refugee camp schools in Bangladesh.  We ran various sessions with all the children, encouraging them to think about what life as a refugee might be like.  They also role played as junior reporters,  telling their friends in the UK about the situation in Burma. Overall, they managed to raise an amazing £556 which will support the provision of education in Bangladesh. 

Dorset House School and Oakwood Prep both set aside time to focus on Children on the Edge.  Dorset House did a sponsored walk on the downs and raised over £2000!  Over at Oakwood, the year 5 pupils organised a day of activities designed to reflect some of the challenges children around the world face on a daily basis.  There was an obstacle course where pupils had to carry water without spilling it, a shelter-building activity and a jewellery making ‘sweatshop’.  It was a brilliant day and the children were all fantastic!

So far this term, we’ve been working with West Wittering, Chidham, Funtington and Eastergate Primary Schools. At Chidham Primary, Beckie spent time with the school council who are planning activities they can do with their peers in order to raise money for our work.  At West Wittering, each class gave over a lesson to think about the rights of children all around the world.  Reception class loved discovering all the different objects in the feely bag - each representing a different thing that we need to lead happy and healthy lives.

Over at Eastergate primary, Green class spent an afternoon learning about what we do and our different projects.  They’ve been doing lots of work on the rights of the child and were particularly fascinated with the refugee crisis in Burma. They are now thinking about how they can raise vital funds for our work with Burmese refugees.

We’re so excited to be able to talk to local school children about the rights afforded to all children in all parts of the world - the same for them as it is for a working child in Bangladesh or a refugee from Burma.  What’s been brilliant is seeing their engagement with the topic and how they are so alert to injustice.

This week, on Universal Children’s Day, the children of Funtington Primary took part in a range of activities designed to get them thinking about what rights children all around the world have. They learnt about our projects in Bangladesh and how Children on the Edge is working to make a difference to the lives of refugees living there.

We’ve got a range of different workshops, lessons and assemblies that can be adapted and delivered for any age group.  We’re always pleased to be able to build further partnerships with local schools as well as producing a schools pack with ready-to-use resources for those schools a little further afield.

If your school would like to get involved with learning a bit more about our work and children’s rights, please get in touch!

Charlie Meyrick has spent the past six years running up mountains and along roads and tracks including 5 marathons and ultra marathons across the Italian, Swiss and French Alps as well as numerous long distance runs in the UK. The photo on the left shows him finishing a 120km run in Chamonix earlier this year. 

He has now decided (with the help of his wife!) that perhaps it's his turn to walk the dogs,  and is finally hanging up his running shoes.  As a swansong he has decided to run the June 2014 SDW100 - a one hundred mile race taking in the entire South Downs Way national trail, starting in Winchester and ending in Eastbourne with a total elevation of 12,700 feet.  

He is aiming to qualify for the prestigious 100 miles - One Day running buckle awarded to those who finish the race in under 24 hours. He would like to use this barking mad challenge to raise much needed funds for a well deserved charity and has chosen Children on the Edge!

We feel incredibly privileged, and would like to thank Charlie for choosing us! We wish him all the best for next year’s challenge. Watch this space next year to see how he gets on! 

If Charlie has inspired you to start training for a challenge to raise money for our work, then please do get in touch. 

Just £3.00 a calendar and each sale makes a difference to the children we work with. 

We are launching a major fundraising effort in the weeks leading up to Christmas to raise money for our centres of activity across the globe where we work to restore the ingredients of a full childhood to forgotten children, living on the edge of their societies.

These projects include:

• Three Learning Centres in Bangladesh, which give 600 working children a chance to rest, learn, play and receive a meal each day.
• In Thailand, a Children's Crisis Centre for 72 refugee children from Burma who often arrive alone having been orphaned or separated from their parents
• A Child and Community Centre in Soweto Slum, Uganda which provides safety, education and nutrition to 300 children living in appalling conditions.
• 60 covert Refugee Camp Schools for 1800 Rohingya refugee children, living in a makeshift camp in Bangladesh. 

These are our main centres of activity and we desperately need an increasing flow of money to support and expand these endeavours.  In order to do this we are launching a special appeal today, through until Christmas, with a beautiful 2014 Calendar entirely sponsored by local businesses and full of stunning images from our projects.

Our aim is to sell as many calendars as we can and to this end we are asking all our friends and supporters if they would consider joining us in this effort.  By circulating this request our hope is that we can encourage enough of you to buy an average of ten calendars at £3.00 each, much the same price as an arty Christmas card! In fact if you do go for a bundle of ten or above, you can have them for £2.00 each. 

Whether you buy calendars as an alternative to a card, for yourself, or as a present, whether your business buys them as Christmas gifts for your staff, or to sell in your shop or cafe; each sale will make a difference to the children we work with.

Our target is to raise £10,000 all of which will be used to support and expand the projects we have highlighted above. You can contribute to this and get a great set of pressies at the same time... or a nicer looking kitchen wall!?

You can both view and purchase the calendars in our online shop or if you’d like to talk to us about buying in bulk at a reduced price then contact our office.

Children on the Edge believe that rights are things that every child should have or be able to do. They all have the same rights, all these rights are connected to each other and are all equally important.

Because we hold these as important we have a rights based approach in all the work that we do and we want all the children on our projects to have an awareness of their rights in the most child friendly way possible.

We have recently had the privilege of working with illustrator Hannah George to create a colourful poster entitled ‘You have rights’; to go on the walls of our child friendly spaces, classrooms and crisis centre which which explains some of their rights to them. We wanted them to be accessible for children from different cultures and Hannah has done an amazing job meeting this brief. Currently the posters are being translated into Thai, Burmese and Bangla and will be being sent out to our various projects over the next few months.

Hannah is a freelance illustrator living and working on the south coast of England. With a fluid and versatile approach she creates her illustrations using a combination of watercolour, pencil, ink and digital process.

Hannah works regularly with a variety of publishers and has illustrated several children’s picture books with Little Tiger Press. As you can see in the poster; Hannah’s artworks really bring characters to life by exploring movement and personality and we are delighted to have her contribute to our work in this way!

Learn more about child rights and how we implement them in our work. Also you can see more of Hannah’s wonderful work on her website.