Background information
Geomoun has been carrying out development education projects since 2010, encouraging exchange and dialogue through practical simulations. Year after year, we have seen how optimistic and powerful children are and that they deserve to be encouraged. For all these reasons, Geomoun proposes a programme to promote the Right to Participation of children and to build an international network of children who are involved here and elsewhere. The GEOMOUN programme aims to strengthen the right to participation of children, girls and boys so that they can exercise their rights and be agents of change. A change in the mentality of adults is needed to consider children's creative thoughts and ideas: a change in the way adults and the media present the world to children and in the organisational structures of schools and municipalities.
The Sustainable Development Goals reflect the importance of collective awareness and action both in the South and here to eradicate poverty, protect the planet and guarantee the same rights for all. The project allows for a constant relationship between Belgian schools and "southern" schools that wish to improve the right to participation and the children's initiative. Raising awareness will awaken critical thinking, North/South relations will inspire curiosity, the accompaniment of concrete actions will encourage commitment for a more just and united world, the creation of an International Network of Engaging Children (INEE) will support this collective force for change.
Action
The programme promotes the right to participation and proposes activities that take into account the realities in the field for the targeted agents; teachers' ongoing training and provision of teaching tools specific to the right to participation, support for projects in the classroom (radio broadcasts with a crossover view N/S on a theme of global citizenship (see www.lesondenfants.be), coaching for directors for a structural organisation of the right to participation in schools, advocacy with the media and public authorities to promote the right to participation and creation of the "International Network of Engaged Children". This is developed in 3 ways:
1. Training for teachers based on the teaching package "Meeting each other".
Our training courses and pedagogical tools offer teachers creative, pedagogical and playful tools that enable them to tackle the themes of interculturality and critical and committed citizenship with their class. These training courses are given at the universities of teacher training and during IFC training courses for which Geomoun is recognized as an operator.
2. The Le Son d'Enfants ("The Sound of Children") project
LE SON D'ENFANTS ("THE SOUND OF CHILDREN") invites children from the North and the South to learn and express themselves together about society and not to be passive in the face of problems that may arise. Thanks to the reflection work done in class, children will also think about the interconnections of societal issues. What happens here, what happens there? Does what I do here have an impact there?
They too, at their own level, have the right to make their opinions known, to challenge adults and politicians. And they act because today's world is theirs to change.
www.lesondenfants.be
3. The International Network of Engaged Children
The Network is being created and gradually developed in collaboration with partner associations: La Chaloupe (AMO), Entraide et Fraternité ONG, KIYO ONG, SCI ONG, PKIO (Plateforme des droits de l'enfant). Not to mention our local partners: Carrefour Jeunesse in Benin, Visions Solidaires in Togo, Timkatec and RESEDH in Haiti.
This Network will highlight the civic commitments of children and youth in the Children's Sound Project and will also allow children and youth from here and abroad to participate in an annual competition of civic initiatives that will allow them to showcase their creative and civic ideas to improve their environment and social justice.
Partners
To carry out this international project, Geomoun can count on these partners in Haiti, Togo and Benin. The collaborators and social workers in these various associations go to local schools to carry out the activities from the Children's Sound Project, participate in an action-research on the impact of projects on children's participation rights and contribute to the establishment of the international network of engaged children.
RESEDH
RESEDH is Geomoun's local partner for the child protection programme in the Southeast Department in Haiti. Macula Jean Marie is one of the social workers in the project. She carries out the activities from the Le Son d'Enfants project at the Baptiste St Cyr school in Jacmel.
Timkatec
Timkatec, a long-standing partner of Geomoun, is a centre for basic education and training and a place of refuge for highly vulnerable children in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Valéry Voltaire, a member of the PMS centre in Timkatec, carries out the activities from the Le Son d'Enfants project and ensures the correspondence with the Belgian twin class.
Visions Solidaires
Visions Solidaires aims to promote solidarity, peace and civic engagement through popular education. After several informal meetings during Samir Abi's trip to Belgium, Geomoun and Visions Solidaires decided to collaborate on the project Le Son d'Enfants. Togolese volunteers are trained to look after children by the association and they follow the programme set out by the Le Son d'Enfants project in different schools in Lomé.
Carrefour Jeunesse
Carrefour Jeunesse is an after-school centre created in 2011 in Comé, Benin. Its projects include educational activities, the strengthening of local initiatives and intercultural exchanges, particularly with Belgium through the association L'AMO La Chaloupe. It is through this neighbouring association that Geomoun started its collaboration with Carrefour Jeunesse.
Entraide et Fraternité
A development cooperation and education NGO created in 1961 working for more social justice, Entraide et Fraternité has three missions: support for projects in the South, awareness and citizen mobilization campaigns with the Belgian public, as well as political advocacy. Over the years and by meeting its partners in the South, Entraide & Fraternité has observed many projects involving children, allowing them to express themselves and their needs, offering them the opportunity to train or simply to have the right to be a child.
On the basis of these experiences, Entraide & Fraternité offers a programme for Belgian teachers to teach the Rights of the Child through Participation as a vehicle for change. How? By using a way of working that is focused on:
