"We have to keep in mind that children on the move are first and foremost children and their rights move with them!" Dr. Najat Maalla M’jid, Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General on Violence against Children

A webinar series on Resilience and Children on the Move, took place from September to November 2021, gathering more than 350 participants in three sessions. Throughout the sessions, participants shared experiences and best practices to support, protect and nurture the physical, socio-emotional, and spiritual well-being of children on the move.

On 9 March 2021, Arigatou International Geneva’s Executive Director, Ms. Maria Lucia Uribe was invited to partake in an online webinar hosted by Shanti Ashram. The webinar was the third installment in a series called the Interactive Knowledge Update. This session, entitled The Rationale and Impact of Successful Convening, focussed on the concept of convening. Defined as the act of bringing people together, usually for a public purpose, convening has come to occupy a critical role for many international organizations.

“Everyone needs to be educated ‒ the leaders, the public, the children, the youth, the elite and the masses. Formal education as well as non-formal education has a great role to play in bringing about peace and disarmament in the present-day world. We are all members of one human family. United we stand and divided we fall.” 

Dr. M. Aram, 

Founder President, Shanti Ashram

With Dr. Aram’s words as a reference line for the discussions, the series of webinars titled “Leaders Dialogue – Active Peace Building for Community Cohesion in the Midst of COVID-19” kicked off on Tuesday, 22 July 2020. The Leaders Dialogue aimed at listening to one another and sharing notes from leadership experiences, guided by the premise that leaders multiply leaders. In unprecedented times like the COVID 19 Pandemic or in everyday encounters, such dialogue creates an environment of reflection, mutual learning and recommitment to action, active peacebuilding, and community cohesion. 

The International Consortium on Nurturing Values and Spirituality in Early Childhood for the Prevention of Violence is developing a toolkit on the spiritual development of children in the early years to foster their well-being and help prevent violence in child upbringing. The toolkit seeks to provide faith-based actors with concrete guidance, tools and examples about how to work with faith communities to nurture the spiritual development of children as well as to contribute to the prevention of violence in early childhood. The ultimate goal of this toolkit is to contribute to children’s holistic development and well-being.

Due to the high demand for the online course Ethics Education for Children: A Transformative Pedagogy for Learning to Live Together held in June 2020, the Geneva office decided to offer a second round of the course in English as well as in Spanish, adapted to the Latin America and Caribbean region.

With the upcoming commemoration of the International World Refugee Day on sight, the International Dialogue Centre (KAICIID) organized on 18 June 2020 a webinar to discuss and explore ways to build trust to achieve a more inclusive society for people seeking refuge in Europe. The webinar was hosted by the Program of Social Inclusion of People Seeking Refuge in Europe and the Network for Dialogue.

Arigatou International had an enriching meeting to renew collaborations with the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue (PCID), on 22 August 2019 at the Vatican.

With a four-day Facilitator Training Workshop that took place from 12 to 15 August 2019, the Learning to Live Together Programme made its first introduction in Mexico, where until now the Programme was not adapted or used.

After running workshops in seven countries around the world, the pilots for the adaptation of the Learning to Live Together Programme to Middle Childhood came to an end after completing the three last pilots in Tanzania, in July, and in India and Ecuador in August 2019, and reaching a total of 250 children from several religious and ethnic communities and secular backgrounds.

Arigatou International, in close collaboration with UNICEF, the former Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General on Violence against Children, the Global Network of Religions for Children (GNRC) and with the support of partners, the International Dialogue Center (KAICIID) and World Vision International, will launch the first ever global study on Faith and Children’s Rights to honor the 30th Anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), focusing particularly on the role of religious leaders and religious communities in promoting children’s rights and well-being and in preventing violence against children.

The study constitutes a valuable guidance for anyone who is committed to advancing the promotion of children’s rights: it provides a sound resource to support the efforts of religious leaders and religious communities to further expand their advocacy and action, mobilize new partners and engage even more deeply within their own faith communities to protect children from violence and promote their healthy development. 

The study provides perspectives from seven religious traditions: the Bahá’í Faith, Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism and the Sikh Faith. In total, these traditions have more than 5.5 billion adherents around the globe. 

The multi-religious study highlights the often significant role that the diverse communities of the world’s faith traditions have played in the preparation, adoption, ratification and implementation of the CRC over the past three decades.  It recognizes innovative work and good practices carried out every day to further children’s rights and contribute to child protection by religious groups as a means to carry out their mission.   It also contains new ideas for collaboration and recommendations for further actions by all stakeholders, including fostering interreligious dialogue as a way to facilitate the protection and promotion of children rights.  

Religious leaders and faith-based organizations are in a unique position to champion children’s rights, asserting their moral authority to make a difference in children’s lives. They command extraordinary influence and often serve as role models of compassion, solidarity and justice. They help to bridge differences, foster dialogue, and influence positive social and behavioral change. 

At the same time, around the globe today and throughout history, there are, and have been, harmful practices and actions among religious communities that are deeply inconsistent with both the fundamental values of the world’s major religions and children’s rights. No religious teaching or tradition condones or justifies any form of violence against children.  

The far-reaching influence of religious leaders and faith-based organizations is especially important as we address sensitive social and cultural norms that deny children their rights. 

This study creates a unique and compelling opportunity to put faith into action and promote interfaith collaboration to revitalize the implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, inspiring positive change for children, everywhere and at all times. 

The study will be launched at the United Nations on 19 November with a panel discussion featuring high religious leaders, the Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights, the head of UNICEF Europe, the Committee on the Rights of the Child and representatives of the partner organizations. The panel will be followed by a Reception where children will officially hand over the study to religious leaders and provide recommendations to bring it into action in their communities. 

For further information, contact

Arigatou International Geneva

E-mail: geneva(at)arigatouinternational.org

Phone: +41 22 734 94 10