Children and youth participation

• We participate in all key events of the National Network for Children. In the first year of the programme we have an autumn camp which is dedicated to human rights, children's rights and more specifically the right to participation, as well as the European and international documents that regulate them.

  Next is Voice It - the biggest event for children and youth participation, in which we, the participants in the Megaphone programme, play a major role.

  During the spring camp, we build our advocacy skills, how to communicate our important messages to different audiences, and build leadership skills to help us make change happen in our communities.

  We actively participate in work on topics from the Notebook - the traditional monitoring report of the National Network for Children - we hold focus groups with peers and make speeches during its presentation.

  We have the opportunity to co-host the Golden Apple Awards with an adult, meanwhile voting and presenting the 'Megaphone' vote during a jury meeting that determines the winners in the different categories.

  We open an annual meeting of the National Network for Children, presenting our activities throughout the year - we host panels related to the topics we work on.

  In the second year, we go through training for the Children Explorers programme, which is part of the Megaphone programme. We learn how to create research tools, collect and process data, and present it to different audiences.

We have been together at Megafon for two years. We finish the program at an annual meeting of the National Network for Children, during which we receive our diplomas for our participation.

• As we learn what our rights are and how to stand up for them, we build friendships;
• We understand what other children and young people's perspectives are that would not otherwise be heard;
• We develop skills that help us in life - we learn how to communicate with different people - politicians, people who work in institutions;
• We can refer to data from the research we do when we defend our positions;
• It is easier to communicate with adults and defend our opinions;
• We are constantly learning from each other.

Any of us who want to remain part of the National Network for Children. We have the opportunity, as graduates of the programme, to contribute to the work of the new teams. Some of us get involved in spring and fall camps as co-facilitators of the process, as well as during the Children Explorers training and in facilitating activities at the National Network for Children annual meeting.

Art. 12 and Article 13 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child emphasize that the child has the right to form his or her own views and opinions, to express them freely and to have them given due weight in decision-making.

The National Network for Children sees this as a critical process in the development of children and young people as fully fledged individuals capable of asserting their positions. The Network views this right as a means of child protection. A child who is not trained to share his thoughts and feelings may not, for example, share that he is being bullied, and in such a situation responsible adults would not be able to take action.

Children's participation guarantees children's rights and implies that they not only express their opinions freely, but are also active participants in community and societal processes, including the cohesion of child-adult relationships, the acquisition of competence to communicate and the empowerment of children. Together, we see the participation of children and young people as a factor in the development of our communities - whether in the neighbourhood, in the school or in the organisations we visit.

This is why together we are developing the Megaphone Programme as an open community with two-way interaction - both when children consult and get involved in Network projects, and when the Network supports the ideas and activities of the children themselves.