Under the Spanish Presidency of the Council of the EU, a European Meeting of National Coordinators of the European Child Guarantee takes place in Valencia from 2-4 November. Part of the forum is a side event organised by Plataforma de Infancia and Eurochild, which brings together experts from Eurochild member organisations and European Child Guarantee coordinators in discussion panels on crutial topics. At the invitation of the organisers, Natalia Efremova, National Coordinator of the European Child Guarantee at the Ministry of Labour and Social Policy and Plamena Nikolova from the National Network for Children join the discussions on the stage.
The meeting aims to promote the European Child Guarantee initiative and reinforce European commitments and public policies for vulnerable children, including those under protection systems or who have experienced violence or neglect.
On the second day of the European meeting, Ally Dunhill, Director of Policy, Advocacy and Communications at Eurochild, presented data from the first report of the pan-European network on child poverty that covers four European countries, including Bulgaria. Young people from our youth participation programme Megaphone also participated in the study. The panel discussed the new challenges affecting children at risk and how countries support the most vulnerable children. Plamena Nikolova, Director of Child Policies at NNC, talked about the measures included in the National plan and specific actions aimed at Roma communities in Bulgaria for the social inclusion of Roma children. She presented practices of the organizations in the National Network for Children that help state institutions in the effective implementation of the Guarantee and the reduction of child poverty in the country. Children’s rights were also discussed in the context of the upcoming European Parliament elections in 2024.
About the organizers:
Plataforma de Infancia is an alliance of non-profit, plural, solidary, democratic and politically and religiously
independent entities that work to achieve full compliance with the rights of children and adolescents.
It integrates the efforts of social organizations and all the agents involved in the welfare of children.
Plataforma de Infancia was born in 1997 with the mission to unite the efforts of statewide organizations
working in the field of children and to create a space for coordination that defends, promotes and protects
the rights of children and adolescents in Spain in accordance with the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Eurochild brings together more than 200 organisations in 41 countries in Europe to advocate for children’s rights and well-being in close cooperation with European Union structures. The National Network of Children has been a member of Eurochild for more than 10 years and is the main national partner for Bulgaria in a number of focal policy areas, including the effective implementation of the European Child Guarantee.
